Reminders of Him

by Colleen Hoover

I may not have killed him with my actions, but I definitely killed him with my inaction.

Guilt is an emotion that has already been established based off a previous choice. Maybe she didn't take in the account of the possibilities and how she would feel. #neurotypcal

I’m telling you this because he tasted like coffee, but a better kind of coffee than the prison coffee they served to the prisoners. He tasted like expensive eight-dollar coffee from Starbucks, with caramel and whipped cream and a cherry. It’s why I kept kissing him. Not because I enjoyed the kiss, or him, or his hand on my waist, but because I missed expensive flavored coffee.

Sometimes acts of intimacy can be so selfish. And this a an good example of transactional intimacy where there is no real connection other than circumstances and proximity.

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.

He assumes I’m a grown-ass woman, but I barely feel like an adult. I’m a twenty-six-year-old teenager, inexperienced, starting from scratch.

When a traumatic event occurs where you are thrown into where there are adult consequences, you get stuck. When you are punished so harshly you do t get to develop

People say you fall in love, but fall is such a sad word when you think about it. Falls are never good. You fall on the ground, you fall behind, you fall to your death. Whoever was the first person to say they fell in love must have already fallen out of it. Otherwise, they’d have called it something much better.

My friend Bri says this

“No. I had to break up with my girlfriend.” My head swung in your direction. “You have a girlfriend?” “Not anymore.” You shot me a coy look. “But you had one when you asked me out earlier?”

This ain't cute, this is narcissistic

Maybe that’s why I saw red flags last night. My subconscious recognized her before I could.

“Is it a fucking pigeon?”

Scotty

It was so earth shattering for me to be sitting at a dinner table, listening to a guy thank God for his meal and his family and me. It was too surreal to keep my eyes closed. I wanted to take it all in, to see what other people looked like as they prayed. I wanted to stare at this family because it was hard to wrap my head around the idea that if I married Scotty, this would be mine. I would have these parents, and this meal would be something I helped cook, and I’d learn how to thank God for my food and for Scotty. I wanted it. I craved it. Normalcy.

Can people who have been abandoned woth trauma actually have a relationship with people who haven't? Kenna was a stray in a strange world that she never knew existed. Was it Kenna's energy that got Scotty killed?

But what if we were just looking for someone to blame because we were all hurting so much? It never once occurred to me that Kenna might have been hurting as much as we were.

“Scotty was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I wasn’t unremorseful. I was too devastated to speak.

Kenna could have subconsciously let Scotty die because she felt that she didn't deserve better

but you would change the peaceful existence they’ve worked so hard to build since Scotty died. The stress your presence would bring to Patrick and Grace would be felt by Diem, no matter how hard they tried to hide it from her. So . . . who would your presence in Diem’s life benefit? Besides yourself?”

The black cloud, the low vibrational energy

“What are those for?” I ask her. “To drown out the music.” “You don’t want to hear music?” She faces the sink, but not before I see her expression falter. “I hate music.” She hates music? Is that even a thing? “Why do you hate music?”

He smells like limes and bad decisions.

I had no idea that was the only thing holding me back from Ledger. I just needed to know he believed in me.

It is what it is. A fucked-up situation, with no evil people to blame. We’re all just a bunch of sad people doing what we have to do to make it until tomorrow.

I know they’re good people. Scotty loved them. They’re just also hurt people,

Hurt people hurt people

“Holy shit,” Patrick says. I look over at him, but his focus is on something in the backyard. I follow his line of sight until . . . no. No way. “I’ll be damned,” I say quietly. “Is that . . . is that a fucking pigeon?” It is. It’s an actual pigeon. A real live white-and-gray pigeon just walking around in the backyard like this isn’t the most miraculous timing a bird has ever had in the history of birds.