The Plus One (A Brush With Love, #3)

by Mazey Eddings

Therapy is scary because it requires you to be brave. It’s one of the most radical forms of self-love.”

The problem with being self-aware and introspective while also being, admittedly, emotionally damaged was that Indira could reason through her feelings and their source and how they didn’t serve her, but she also couldn’t stop the ruminating circles of feeling them.

You can hurt and also be loved. You can feel sadness and also laugh and feel joy. Good emotions can coexist with hard ones. You can struggle and suffer and learn to heal while you also love. The best place to start is by giving yourself permission to feel with abandon. Feel everything.”

“Fathers make an effort. Fathers care about their kids. Their feelings. Fathers do everything they can to make it to graduations, remember birthdays, even just fucking check in with how their kids are doing. You are a mouthpiece for empty promises and I’m done listening.”

He actually believed that. Her father—the man who had willfully missed it all while he built other trial families—really, truly believed he was doing his best. Finally, finally, it clicked into place. He would never understand how much he’d failed his children. He would never acknowledge the hurt he’d caused them. And yelling or crying or opening herself up to him wouldn’t do anything to change that.

Surviving, like so many other aspects of life, isn’t a meritocracy. Someone’s good deeds or their bad ones don’t determine when or how they die. Your internalized perception of your worth, or lack thereof, doesn’t change the fact that you are here. You are now. And you have the choice to do with it what you will.”