Next to You Quotes

“Are you flirting with me?” I ask. Or at least I think I do. His soft, single laugh surprises me. “For over a year now. Thanks for noticing.” He kisses next to my ear.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“The last letter, by total chance, is my favourite. No poetic prose or details. He’s not trying to impress me, and he’s not trying to earn me. It’s only ten words on a full sheet of paper—not even signed. Fuck, I miss you. You’ve ruined me. Do it again.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Happiness is like one of those places on an enchanted island, its gates guarded by dragons. One must fight to gain it.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“It’s no longer a question if I love him. I know I do. It’s whether I can love myself as much as I love Matt that matters. If I can allow myself to love him in a way that he deserves, free from fear.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Sometimes it feels like everyone else has a script, and I’m doing improv.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I promise to love you forever. Simple as that. My love will not always be perfect. I won’t always be kind; I won’t always be generous; I won’t always be rational—but I will love you every single day I have on this earth. And I will tell you I love you with my words and with my actions.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“It is an honour to wear your father’s ring. I’m—” He swallows, gathering himself. “I’m going to look after it. I’m going to look after you.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Our kiss is a reunion. It’s running into someone’s arms at an airport. It’s spotting an old friend across a crowded party. It’s relief and joy and gratefulness and surprise. And it’s perfect.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I think of the string Rochester described to Jane, tethered to each other’s rib. That he felt like he was going to bleed out by having it ripped off him if she went too far. I didn’t understand that until you. Missing you is painful. Physical and real. Perhaps if I keep tugging on this invisible string, you’ll follow it home. Yours, Matt.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Maybe, as scary as it is, time running out is a gift.” He drags a lazy hand down my back. “If we were infinite beings, I wouldn’t worry about holding you like this every second I could. I’d know I’d get to do it again. The love I have for you is urgent. It’s a needy thing. Maybe it wouldn’t be if we had eternity. I’d get lazy with it.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I have something for you.” I lower the chain into my palm, and it coils like a snake. Then, once I’ve removed my father’s wedding ring from it, I lower to one knee slowly.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I fall asleep cocooned in my own blanket-turned-shield, facing away from him, long after he falls asleep. Hours later, I wake up to an alarm far earlier than I’ve ever set and my body draped across him like a starfish stuck to an aquarium’s glass wall.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I haven’t discovered religion since you left, but I can only describe what I’ve been doing in your absence as praying. You come into my thoughts so often that I had to do something productive to dismiss them. So whenever I think of you, I inhale for a long ten seconds, soaking in the moment, and then exhale all my love for you out into the ether, hoping you’ll feel it somehow. I ask whoever is listening to keep you safe and bring you home when you’re ready. I ask for patience. I ask for every day you’re away to be added on to how long we will have together. Do you feel it?”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Because Matt is my own personal comfort. A walking hot-water bottle. A favorite blanket. A cozy hoodie. A cup of tea delivered with a kiss on the forehead. Warmth builds and builds inside my chest, and I realize suddenly, clearly, and certainly—I’ve never felt like this about anyone else. I think I’m in love with Matt.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“She’s always been…a bitch curt.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I hope that tomorrow, when we wake up, it feels like the first of an infinite number of mornings. I hope our days together feel slow and our years long. I hope time passes mercifully.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Yeah. It’s been quiet.” “Here?” “No, without you.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I consider myself a feminist. Not always a perfect one—but I do my best. However, right now, I’d let this man take me back to his cave and have his way with me. I’d put on a fifties housewife dress, make him his favourite meatloaf, and sit with an empty plate in front of me while watching him eat adoringly. I consider the complications that may arise if I attempt to carry his giant babies between my narrow hips and decide it’s worth it.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Lane, I love you. Endlessly. Completely and with every piece of me. You’re funny and kind and smart and truly the best Scrabble player I’ve ever encountered.” He laughs and wipes a tear from his cheek. “I cannot wait to begin our story. The best is yet to come.” He closes the notebook tenderly and hands it to his father, who grabs his shoulder and kisses his cheek.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“No, I’m doing this. Matt deserves this. Grand fucking gesture time.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“Fuck, I miss you. You’ve ruined me. Do it again.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“I narrow my eyes, determination straightening my jaw. Time to start kicking dragon ass.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“It’s no longer a question if I love him. I know I do. It’s whether I can love myself as much as I love Matt that matters.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“What?” She switches my mom’s glasses as she reaches for them, giving Mom water instead of wine, like a reverse Jesus.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“My mom’s a reader—I guess that’s where I got it from—and she had this line from The Count of Monte Cristo she’d quote often.” He clears his throat with one small cough. “Happiness is like one of those places on an enchanted island, its gates guarded by dragons. One must fight to gain it.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“This is such a you gift.” The words tumble out of me. “Cheap? Boring? Peculiar?” He crosses one leg over his knee, which is bouncing. “No.” I find his eyes and hold his stare. “Thoughtful, careful, beautiful.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“All my heart is yours, sir. It belongs to you, and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“The good stuff shouldn’t feel scary.”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You

“But today—the day I signed up for my first ever dating app because I admittedly may be having a hefty dry spell and a crisis about said dry spell—is my twenty-seventh birthday. The end of my “mid” twenties, and the dawning of a new era of “full adulthood.” So, in the words of Taylor Alison Swift, this is me trying…to get laid (Taylor’s Version).”
― Hannah Bonam-Young, Next to You