Reminders of Him

by Colleen Hoover

want to learn how to talk to people without wishing I could retract every word I said. I want to be good at feeling things when a guy touches my waist. I want to be good at life. I want to make it look effortless, but up until this point, I’ve made every aspect of life appear entirely too difficult to navigate.

Her face is a work of art. I wish there was a picture of it hanging on a wall in a museum somewhere so I could stand in front of it and stare at it for as long as I wanted.

I want good things for her because it seems like she hasn’t had a good thing in a long, long time.

There’s still a stigma with the men, but the women never get out with stigmas and badges of honor.

I’m only human, though. Humans need companions,

There’s a war in his eyes, and I am by no means Switzerland,

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.

said, “I fucking love you, Kenna. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I miss you all the time, even when we’re together.”

She’s quiet in a fierce way—a storm that sneaks up on you, and you don’t know it’s there until you feel the thunder rattle your bones.

She’s quiet, but she’s said just enough to make me want the rest of her words.

Your smile was like warmth sliding over me. It was dangerous and it was comfortable, and I didn’t know what to do about those warring feelings, so I looked away from you.

Choose your battles, they say. But what happens when you never choose any?

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

Some things can

but sometimes an action is so painful the memory of it can still crush a person ten years down the road.

It shouldn’t matter if a mother isn’t perfect. It shouldn’t matter if she’s made one big, horrible mistake in the past, or a lot of little ones. If she wants to see her child, she should be allowed to see her, even if it’s just once. I know from experience that if you’re going to grow up with an imperfect mother, it’s better to grow up knowing your imperfect mother is fighting for you than to grow up knowing she doesn’t give a shit about you.

I thought I’d never speak to her again, not because we had some huge falling-out, but because our relationship was a burden and I think we both felt like we’d been set free when that relationship broke down.

And now we never will, because life is a cruel, cruel thing, the way it picks and chooses who to bully. We’re given these shitty circumstances and told by society that we, too, can live the American dream. But what they don’t tell us is that dreams almost never come true.

Reality is depressing as fuck.

People need people.

“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.”

Every song is a reminder of something bad in my life, so I’d rather hear no songs at all.

We’re all just a bunch of sad people doing what we have to do to make it until tomorrow. Some of us sadder than others. Some of us more willing to forgive than others. Grudges are heavy, but for the people hurting the most, I suppose forgiveness is even heavier.

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.