I Could Live Here Forever

by Hanna Halperin

My prettiness wasn’t straightforward or consistent and it was something I felt more when I was by myself.

Every story I wrote was a love letter.

But he didn’t read books or think in the same way I did.

My mother was always looking to believe in something bigger than herself. Whether it was through religion or art or some specific person or experience, she was on the lookout for the divine and the powerful. Ready, at a moment’s notice, to be swept away.

being alone again after having been in love was even worse than the original loneliness.

Those were the parts that I read, over and over again, like a fiend.

Being saved from sadness and saving someone from sadness—these weren’t just things I yearned for out of the blue. It was something I’d been born into. I didn’t know how to separate the feeling of love from the feeling of wanting to escape.

It was impossible to know for certain where my feelings ended and hers began.

There was something in me—a part of myself that had been there long before I’d ever met Charlie—that had found something in him that I simply could not let go of.

“It doesn’t matter how long. People do things on their own timeline.”

“A relationship isn’t supposed to make you happy. You find happiness on your own. A partner is there to support you and build with you. It seems as though you’re looking for some magic person who’s going to solve all your problems, but you have to do that yourself. What we have together is complicated, but it’s good and real.”