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For introverts like me with social anxiety, the process of dating is equivalent to waxing your bikini line. Menstrual cramps on day two of your cycle. An emergency dental procedure you weren’t expecting—and guess what: they’re fresh out of novocaine.
And then there’s the BuzzFeed article, which is my personal favorite. They devoted an entire piece to the many looks of Will Griffin. It’s basically a rotation of images and GIFs where he’s either stern or swoony. Will has perfected the balance between I-will-knock-you-flat-if-you-try-to-cross-me, but my-hands-can-be-oh-so-tender-on-your-body.
Will opens my truck door and I feel momentarily upset—only because this five minutes with him has already been better than any date I’ve ever been on, and yet I’ll never get to have it again. And now on every date I go on I’ll hope they get the door for me—which they won’t, because half the women in the world hate it when a man gets their door and the other half love it, resulting in the man panicking and cannonballing into his side without ever asking what the woman actually prefers. I’ve never particularly cared either way, but now, after having Will do it for me, it’s decidedly in the like
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“I love you,” Noah says in a whisper to Amelia after the kiss, but I’m sitting close enough to hear it. I smile down at my lap because I adore Amelia and Noah’s relationship. I think it must be similar to what my parents had. Sturdy, deep, and dependable. And they sure look at each other with hearts in their eyes just like I’ve seen in all the photos of my parents. It’s the kind of love that just works and makes everyone around them envious. It’s what I want. The superglue-sticky, not-going-anywhere, till-death-do-us-part relationship. Someone to step up beside me and lend me his hand where
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It’s too much fun to mess with her. There’s no way Annie is any kind of serious. She’s just trying to ignite some sort of protective instinct in me, hoping that I’ll agree to be her coach. “Probably. I mean, yes. Definitely lots and lots of…” she swallows, “sexy times on the horizon.” “Wow, that’s going to be great. You’ll have a blast,” I say, enjoying this taunting way too much before noticing Annie’s eyes drop to my lips. And just like that, she steals the entire show again. All of my thunder is gone and I can’t think straight with her eyes fixed on my mouth like that. I try to hold still
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James laughs again, and their camaraderie is making me feel a little ill. “We’ll see,” James says before winking at Annie in a blatantly Matthew McConaughey kind of way. And now I want to run him over with his own truck. Am I jealous? No, I’m never jealous. You can’t have a series of no-strings-attached hookups with women for your entire adult life and be the jealous type. It’s impossible. And yet, as I see Annie eyeing James in an assessing way and coming to some sort of conclusion, I realize I am absolutely jealous.
“Hey, James?” she begins thoughtfully. “I have sort of a random question to ask you. And feel free to say no, but would you—” “I’ll do it,” I say quickly, cutting Annie off. She whips her head in my direction and stares up at me.
“You will? But you just said—” “I know. I changed my mind. I want to do it.” She blinks and smiles up at me, and my heart fills with something that feels like lava. “But I have one condition.” “Name it.” I grin. “I get to walk out of here today with your book.” “My book?” she asks, hoping she heard me wrong. “The book.” I smile as I watch two pink splotches hit the apples of her cheeks. For a beat, there’s nothing but silence. Painful, thick silence. And then slowly Annie’s swee...
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James clears his throat. “Why do I feel like I just missed out on an important opportunity?” Because you did. Now, get lost, she’s mine.
with Amelia, it’s not just a sisterly connection but that of a close friend too. She views me differently than my sisters do. She values my opinion and seems to understand me in a way that Emily and Madison never have. With them, everything always gets boiled down to one clear-cut outlook: Annie is our sweet baby sister, a little plain and unexciting.
Sometimes I don’t want to hear the let’s-poke-fun-at-sweet-Annie banter they always reply with when I tell them the truth.
I’m so tired of that narrative looping around me day in and day out. I’m tired of everyone so neatly placing me in a box and tying a silk ribbon around it and then telling me to sit and stay.
“It seems to me, Annie, that you are just waiting for someone to give you permission to be yourself out loud.”
“Someone feeling a little jealous?” “Not in the least.” “Your jaw just flexed.” “It does that naturally because it’s so square.” “You mean it does that naturally when you’re jealous.”
it’s hard to look at you and continue persuading myself that kissing you would be a mistake
I’m not playing games with Annie—I’m spilling my heart out.
The sound of crickets, the feel of the humid summer night, and the dangerous smile aimed at me all combine to make sure this becomes the strongest core memory of my life.
I’m terrified to admit that holding her in my arms is the closest I’ve come to feeling truly happy in a very long time. I didn’t even know I was lacking happiness. But now that I’ve realized it, I can pinpoint it with scary accuracy.
I take in her long blonde hair, her soft blue eyes, and the curve of her mouth, and I throw all of my plans out the window and consider doing the one thing that scares the hell out of me: staying. Forget the open road of freedom. I think I have everything I could ever need in my arms.
I want to get married. I want a family. I need to do this, Will. You don’t understand, but I have to get married. I have this gaping hole in my heart, and I can’t close it up. This is the only thing left to try to close it even though I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work, and you’re going to leave, and I’ll get married, and it’ll still be in there just empty and hurting.” She’s starting to cry.
He lets go of my hands to cup my face. “Please just promise me you’ll marry someone who sees you and loves you and who makes you excited and happy—not just someone who looks right on paper.” You. I want you, Will. “I promise,” I say softly, resisting tears with every fiber of my being.
“So…did your friends finally leave?” he says as I sit down beside him. I snap my eyes to him. “You knew the whole time?” He laughs. “Absolutely. And that dude is in love with you, right?”
Later that night, I lie in bed restless and unable to sleep from unending questions somersaulting through my head. So I text the one person who has become my absolute safe place. “I can’t sleep. Come over?” Ten minutes later, even though it’s against his rules, Will is slipping into my bed and wrapping his arms around me. He kisses my neck and my jaw and my temple and then with his arms around me, I fall asleep with my finger tracing the raised lines of his butterfly tattoo—scared of the day when I call and he’s too far away.
“Ethan, how did you know that it was worth it to love Hannah?” He laughs quietly on the other end as it sounds like he’s opening a bag of coffee. “You make it seem like there was a choice in the matter.
“What do you need from me, sweetie? Advice? Or for me to listen?” “Advice. I really need advice.” “Good, cause you were gonna get it either way.”
I’ve lived so much of my life without sharing who I am with them, that I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to tell them that this version of me they’ve seen for so long is not necessarily true to me anymore.”
“Annabell, I need you to know, I’ve fallen madly in love with you.” I hold still. “But you don’t believe in love.” He brushes the back of his fingers affectionately over my jaw and down my throat. “It was easier to say I don’t believe in love, rather than admitting to myself that I was afraid I wouldn’t be loved back.”
leaving this town without you was the scariest thought I’ve ever had. I need you in my life like I need air, Annie. You have wrecked me in the best way I could ever imagine, and I’ll never be the same. Never want to be the same.”
“Did I ever tell you why I never talked to you before that day in the alley?” “No,” I say, feeling like I’m in a dream as I gaze up at Will bathed in the warm lights and smiling down at me like the secret to his happiness lives inside my bones. “Because I knew once I did—it would be over for me. Some part of me has always known I would love you.”
