Reminders of Him

by Colleen Hoover

As soon as he gives his attention to someone at the other end of the bar, I take a drink of my coffee and close my eyes and cry because life can be so fucking cruel and hard, and I’ve wanted to quit living it so many times, but then moments like these remind me that happiness isn’t some permanent thing we’re all trying to achieve in life, it’s merely a thing that shows up every now and then, sometimes in tiny doses that are just substantial enough to keep us going.

“I miss you all the time, even when we’re together.”

So, you decide right now, right here. Are you gonna live in your sadness or are you gonna die in it?”

“Regret keeps you stuck on pause. So does prison. When you get out of here, make sure you hit play so you don’t forget to move forward.”

Maybe if I acknowledge all the good things, no matter how small, they’ll add up to make the bad thing in my life less painful.

Sometimes things seem good and perfect in the moment, but when you get hours of reflection afterward, the perfection can morph into something else.

She always looks like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, but today she looks like she’s floating. She makes gravity seem powerless against her.

It proves that time, distance, and devastation allow people enough opportunity to craft villains out of people they don’t even know. But Kenna was never a villain. She was a victim. We all were.

Maybe it doesn’t matter whether something is a coincidence or a sign. Maybe the best way to cope with the loss of the people we love is to find them in as many places and things as we possibly can. And in the off chance that the people we lose are still somehow able to hear us, maybe we should never stop talking to them.

Now that I’ve forgiven myself, the reminders of him only make me smile.