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“I give up. The ocean wins.” Wyatt laughed. “That’s kind of your problem. You have a vibe about you like you’re trying to compete with the ocean. This isn’t a win/lose thing. It’s like you need to adjust to the movement of the ocean, to cooperate.” “Oh my God, stop,” Sam said. “Just try to catch a wave like you’re not trying so hard. Get up and then be fully willing to fall off. I mean you’re already wet, right?”
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Sam knew he was right. Everything she loved to do came without force. She’d become a swimmer gradually. She’d started drawing without any particular end in mind. She opened books and just let them carry her away. The most fun she ever had happened when
she acted on an idea without thinkin...
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She wanted to feel what it was like to glide along the curl of a wave, staying steady but open enough to let it take her wherever it was going.
“How long do you think this will last?” she asked. “What kind of a question is that?” “I don’t know.” She was running her hand from his chest to his stomach in perfect rhythm with the waves. “I mean I can’t imagine not being like this. Like, I don’t want to go back.”
“If you’ve loved someone your whole life, it kind of makes sense that you’d love them forever.”
I could fill a book with the words I don’t say about the importance of protecting things that matter. Predictable outcomes.
free. I love precise people;
People like this don’t blow up their families.
pause. My mother is so happy and complete in the world she’s created. I am sometimes so uncomfortable in mine. I envy her this
Which I guess is why it was such a relief when I met Jack. I love Jack, but I don’t need to be touching him all the time. There isn’t this feeling of holding on so tightly because I might fall into the abyss if I let go. There has never been a moment where I felt like he was a part of me; he is just right next to me, a partner. Love like this is so much more manageable, so much less terrifying.
This kind of side-by-side love feels like a manageable kind of joy. I now understand that this is what grown-up love is. It’s not that the thing with Wyatt was magic and this isn’t;
“I know. It’s just so disorienting. I feel like I’ve walked into an old photo album. How is it possible that he’s here and he’s exactly the same, doing all the same things?”
These exchanges were usually punctuated with “sorry” or “let’s not do this,” but their relationship was poisoned. It was impossible for Wyatt to think of his mom alone in that cold house without blaming Bill. He was constantly reacting to all the ways Sam was like her dad, even the things he used to say he loved about her, like her imagination and her directness. Sam could feel Wyatt closing off. Even the sound of his I love you lost its tenderness. He said it the way you’d say goodbye.
voice. He felt incapable of controlling it.
Your dad broke us
“You’re sorry.” Sam remembered how ineffective these words were when her dad was apologizing to her mom. She felt the sloppiness of these words, a casual nod to the rubble after you’ve totally destroyed something. Sam paced the length of the living room and felt the anger spread throughout her body.
“The way we felt that summer, it changed me. Like knowing that love could make a person that happy opened up something in me. It’s why I can write songs. It gives me a lot of hope, that it’s possible to feel that way. If what we had didn’t matter, then my whole life is based on nothing.”
If it was real, then nothing in my life since then makes sense.
Wyatt’s worked really hard to make his dream happen, and I’ve worked really hard to create a life that requires I try nothing.
It’s no joke. “Yes, it’s boring and you don’t like it that much. But you’re going to choose it because you think it’s the right cake for this life you’ve buried yourself in. And Jack just lets you disappear, maybe because he doesn’t care or maybe because he doesn’t even know who you are. If it were me—and it was me, so I know—I’d want you to be everything you could be. I wouldn’t be putting rules and constraints around you, I’d just love you and let you move through the world the way you wanted to. You’ve just given up, Sam. You’re hiding, and it’s pathetic.”
“You’re the cake that looks normal until people dig in and find out it’s spectacular. You’re the chocolate fucking cake, Sam, and you won’t even choose it.”
