Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute

by Talia Hibbert

You don’t need to be special or significant to have value. You’re just important, always, and people either see that or they don’t. They either love you, or they don’t.”

She thinks I’m gonna leave, so I won’t. She thinks nobody stays, so I will. It’s really that simple. I won’t tell her I’m trustworthy, I’ll prove it.

Now that I know I’ll be studying English, I’ve started to have all kinds of hopes, started to imagine myself wearing burgundy brogues and, like, coffee-colored houndstooth trousers and a navy turtleneck to lectures, where I discuss the nature of the creative mind with super-smart professors, and then I go home and write 10,000 words of pure gold.

Mum has my back no matter what, and so does Giselle, and I don’t spend enough time thinking how lucky I am to have the family I do. They are audacious with their love, and that’s who I want to be. Not afraid of my feelings but fired up by them. I want to live my life with pride and as shameless as Neneh Bangura. After all, I am my mother’s daughter.

I’ve decided no one’s reservations—including my own—will ever stop me from going after what I want. Writing is for me, and I’m the one who makes that choice. Celine is for me, and we’re making the choice to be together. If it goes wrong—any of it—I can deal with that. I trust myself to deal with any outcome. I believe in me.