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.

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

_ 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.

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.

- 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.

The world begins and ends with this man.

And I'd want to be here for you. Support you and make you feel better. I want you to tell me when you get bad news so that you're not going through it alone.

You're allowed to defend yourself when people hurt your feelings. You deserve to be around people who are good to you.

The truth is that I don't think any two people both feel one hundred percent in love with each other at the same exact time, all the time.

The universe is chaos and coincidence. If it were operating with any intention, it would be cruelty.

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 didn’t think we were the kind of couple that danced in a kitchen in the middle of the woods, but it turns out that’s exactly the kind of couple that we are.

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.

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.