Sarah Hogle

- But you still haven’t said you love me.
- That’s not true.
- You haven’t.
- I say it all the time, I just say it very, very quietly. I tell you when you’re in another room, or right after we hang up the phone. I tell you when you’ve got headphones on. I say it after you shut the door behind you. I say it in my head every time you look at me.

The beginning are so sparkly, so effortless. You can imagine the other person to be who-ever you want. In all the gaps of your knowledge about them, you can paint in whatever qualities you like as placeholders. You can paint the other person into a dream impossible for them to live up to.

- You stopped seeing me, Naomi. You stopped wanting me. You're going to figure out one of these days that I can tell when you're starting to disassociate, and it's the most heartbreaking experience I've ever had. It's nonstop. It keeps on happening. I try to bring you back to me every time you go to leave, off into your own hear where I'm not allowed.

_ But you still haven’t said you love me.
_ That’s not true.
_ You haven’t.
_ I say it all the time, I just say it very, very quietly. I tell you when you’re in another room, or right after we hang up the phone. I tell you when you’ve got headphones on. I say it after you shut the door behind you. I say it in my head every time you look at me.

I’ve only ever wanted to be liked, and I’ve only ever wanted to be liked by absolutely everybody I come in contact with, however temporarily and inconsequentially. It’s my most dominant and simultaneously weakening driving force, which leads to my toning down various wants and needs in order to make myself digestible, easy to get along with.

I tried to keep him at a safe distance where he could only see the decent parts of me and it made us both miserable. I inadvertently let him in to see the ugly parts but instead of running away like I’d counted on him to do, he wrapped his arms around all of that ugliness and didn’t let go.

I tried to keep him at a safe distance where he could only see the decent parts of me and it made us both miserable. I inadvertently let him in to see the ugly parts but instead of running away like I’d counted on him to do, he wrapped his around all of that ugliness and didn’t let go.

It hits me how much I like his laugh. His smile. His smile is ordinary when taken in on its own, but combined with the adorable laugh lines, the light that glow in his color-chaning eyes, it's remarkable.

In the time it takes him to blink, a galaxy of colors dances across his irises: jade and brown and every flavor of blue, from summer rain to the midnight flash of moonlight on ocean waves.

Relearning you has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.