Hello Beautiful

by Ann Napolitano

I was afraid I was going to put her light out. That my darkness would swamp her light.”

She was no longer who she used to be, and she wasn’t yet whoever she was becoming.

she controlled her own thoughts and feelings, trying to battle herself onto paths she felt like she should be walking.

tried to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a home with no affection or laughter and envisioned a cold, echoing space.

Julia wanted to reimagine herself, and it was hard to do that in the presence of people who had known her since she was a small girl.

“Everyone has been so kind to me. I’m not going to waste their kindness.”

he’d done things he didn’t want to do all the time, and he’d gotten so good at muffling his own preferences that he was rarely aware of them.

a father could be present and nonviolent in a child’s life and still destroy that child.

she’d stayed on the sidelines, as if it weren’t her turn to live.

This was where he belonged, alone in the semi-darkness.

he was no longer a person.

be healthy enough, good enough, and happy enough.

tried to express with his face that he was sorry, because he didn’t seem to be able to speak;

he felt incapable of reaching into the maelstrom of feelings and language inside him and pushing words out of his mouth.

I can’t bear to pretend happiness.”

Someone who would see the best version of me, and make me believe I could be that person.”

He’d known, even then, that there was something wrong with him; he just hadn’t known what it was or what to do.

he’d used her brightness to light the path in front of him.

You did the unthinkable thing and paid a price.

“It was hard for me to accept the fact that we don’t choose who we love, because who you love changes everything.”

“Stop thinking about who you were when you were living the wrong life,

you can’t fail when you’re doing what you love.”

I wish was a dangerous path to walk down. She needed to stay with what is.

She wondered if dying was simply going to be an exercise in letting go of one thing after another.

She’d raced toward adulthood, because she’d always wanted to be in charge.

She didn’t want anyone peering into her soul.

She believed in choices, if she believed in anything. Set a goal, and then work your ass off to get it.

She did her best to act like herself, but she got so tired that she forgot what she was like. She forgot how to act

The act of living had exhausted them.

lived like a cat who refused to leave its cardboard box.

she prided herself on never asking for help.

I could be mad at you. I could scream at you. But I won’t. You raised me to take care of myself, and I will.

“I don’t see why how I choose to live my life, which doesn’t hurt anyone, bothers her so much.”

You have the best heart, and you don’t use it.

When your love for a person is so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.

The infant erupted into cries sometimes, and Alice wished it were appropriate for her to do the same.

“When an old person dies,” Kent said, “even if that person is wonderful, he or she is still somewhat ready, and so are the people who loved them. They’re like old trees, whose roots have loosened in the ground. They fall gently. But when someone like your aunt Sylvie dies—before her time—her roots get pulled out and the ground is ripped up. Everyone nearby is in danger of being knocked over.”

“Mama’s going to pretend like we’ve been a happy family this whole time, and I think we should go along with it.”

we need another pair of eyes. We need the people around us.”