Five Winters

by Kitty Johnson

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you have a crush on your best friend’s brother when you’re eleven—flat chested and too shy to say boo to a goose—he is always going to see you that way.

People who understood what I was going through because they were going through it themselves.

“Maybe the hardest things are the most worthwhile,” I said, hoping it was true.

Everyone was vulnerable beneath the surface. Some people just hid it better than others.

“I’m not sure love can be trusted anyway. Well, not love, but the whole being-in-love thing. Not if it means you can’t really see a person. Because you need to be able to really see a person, don’t you? To judge whether you’ve got a good future together or not?”

“Maybe not. Maybe we needed all that wrong stuff, all that life, to get to this perfect moment.”