Begin Again

by Emma Lord

I like the idea of sharing them to the degree that people can read them one day.

It doesn’t matter what brought me here or what didn’t. Blue Ridge isn’t just a school for me anymore. It’s starting to feel like a home.

there’s some kind of potential energy in waiting for his question, something thrilling and scary, something I want to hear and don’t want to hear at the same time.

We both stop unconsciously, breathing it in.

We just sit in the quiet of it. Soak everything in.

That knee-jerk reaction to prove myself. To make myself useful. To

is it possible that you’re hyper-focusing on someone else’s problems to avoid your own?”

WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU WILL MAYBE AT LEAST MAKE YOU SMARTER

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

I’m beaming like a star, directing all the energy into my lap, only because it’s kind of embarrassing how much her praise means to me.

this feels just as earned. Just as meaningful.

Jamie seems to just appreciate me for being me in the first place.

I’m staying, no matter what.

now that I know I’m here for good, it’s like the last of the old strings holding me back are falling away.

To find satisfaction in something that feels like it’s just mine.

Something I’ve wanted my whole life; something I thought I’d just have to wait

Maybe that kind of table is a lot closer than I think, if I just give it a chance.

am opting for rainbow, with a different color on each finger overlaid with sparkles.

there’s just a respect that life isn’t that simple—that the things that matter most take time.

It’s that he’s been gone for longer than I knew.

At some point, without knowing it, it all slipped away: being in love with my best friend. The future we had planned together.

I can’t move, but I don’t have to. The ground already slipped out from under me before I had the chance to fall.

Whatever we find out today, we trust each other. This isn’t going to rock our friendship.

telling myself I’m not worth the chances people have taken on me.

Are you okay?”

he’s just going to hold me like this for as long as I need it,

he’s just going to ride out this storm with me the same way he did back in that little shed in the woods.

so I let myself cry. I don’t know how long, but long enough that it feels like I’m empty of something, s...

Something that’s been weighing me down so much that it feels like it had its own gravity, and now w...

She helped people get through their shit, and so will you—in your own way. By helping them face it head-on.”

trust that makes me want to believe those words are true, and understands, objectively, that they must be.

strange way you have to rearrange yourself when you can’t make the love you have for someone go away, but have to wait for it to take a new shape.

“Anything worth doing starts with a mess.

I’ve spent my whole life with a plan. Neat, tidy, organized. Fitting myself like a key into other people’s locks just so I could call their homes my own.

Maybe I’m a mess now, but I’m in the middle of everyone else’s mess, too.

We might not know where we fit yet, but we’ve got a strong grip on one another, and maybe that’s all you get to ask for at this point in your life. Maybe it’s the only thing you really need.

But because I want to be with him through it, the same way he has been for me. The same way I sense we will be far beyond this.

We both know by now that grief doesn’t play by anybody’s rules.

Like he’s only letting this part of himself go in this moment because he knows I’m a safe place to land.

want to silently let him know he doesn’t have to hide from me. But he knows that. By now, we both do.

you don’t need to re-create your mom’s shine. You’ve got that all on your own.”

“I … want to kiss you,” he says quietly.

How do you quit an entire person? How do you give up on someone who has defined almost every version of love you know?

I’m at another impasse where a choice has been forced on me.

The emptiness doesn’t feel so empty now, but more like it’s making room for something else.

The understanding that no matter what happens—if we both stay here, or we’re flung thousands of miles apart—we are important to each other, and we will be for the rest of our lives.

I can’t hold on to it anymore.

“I know how to make you happy. I want to make you happy.”

“I don’t think either of us has been happy in a long time.”

You’d still give up all this time to make this happen for me?