Heart Bones

by Colleen Hoover

Sometimes I believe personalities are shaped more by damage than by kindness. Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as damage does. Damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.

I am made of steel now. Come at me, world. You can’t damage the impenetrable.

I can’t help but be a little moved by this, though. The sky is swirled with so many colors, it’s as if the earth has written a poem using clouds, communicating her appreciation to those of us who take care of her.

There’s no way I can be around him all summer and not want to be consumed by him. But I also don’t want to be consumed by someone I’m just going to have to say goodbye to eventually.

Both of his arms wrap around me and he pulls me closer, but I shift a little so that he’ll be reminded not to do that. I don’t like it when both of his arms go around me while we kiss because it makes me think of being held, and being held is something more personal to me than kissing or even sex.

I like spending time with him. But I don’t like the idea of sharing something so intimate with someone who doesn’t want to share more than a few weeks of themselves with me.

I can’t give him more if he insists on staying in the shallow end. Hugs and being held might seem like shallow-end stuff to him, but to me, those things are buried somewhere in the Mariana Trench.

All of our kisses feel important, like they’ll stay with me forever. They aren’t small displays of affection that happen in passing. There’s something bigger behind them than attraction.

There’s a saying from Maya Angelou that reminds me of our situation. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.