The Reality of Everything

“Your grief for Will is just as deep as your love, and that’s not something to be ashamed of. I’m so damned proud to be your friend.”

“I choose you. And if I have to let you lose me so you can save yourself, then I’ll hold on enough for the both of us. That’s how much I love you.”

“I’m going to love you so well that you’ll never doubt that I choose you. Every day. Every situation. I choose you”.”

“I’ve waited my entire life to love you, Morgan. Everything that came before was just to prepare me for your arrival, to teach me how to love you.”

“I think I’m falling for you.” …The look he gave me was so tender, it made my eyes burn. “I don’t need to think. I already know. I’m just glad you’re catching up, because I am so far gone for you that I can’t even see the shore anymore.”

“God, I didn’t deserve this man who held me carefully as I cried out my grief for another.”

“You might preach you’re a mess, but I think you’re pretty fucking perfect, wreckage and all.”

“I want you in a way that keeps me up at night, mentally calculating the steps between my door and yours. I want you so badly that I barely stop myself from taking those steps every single night.”

“You’re loved, Morgan, whether or not you want to be. But please give me the chance to show you how much.”

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore.” Her eyes filled with tears, and I pulled her into my arms, resting my chin on her head as she cried into my chest.“I know you don’t.”“I want to be happy and to have a heart that’s worth risking. I miss my friends. I miss him, but then there’s you, and I want to be ready for whatever this is, and it all just jumbles in my head.” Her sob shook her shoulders.“I’ll wait for as long as you need me to,” I promised her again. “You don’t have to factor me in to your healing. I’m not going anywhere.”

“The way I feel about you scares the shit out of me, but that’s what tells me it’s real.”

“You don’t want this,” I told him softly…“I don’t want what?” he questioned, lowering his head until our foreheads touched. “Because you can’t tell me that I don’t want you.”

“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything. Though the confession”

“What I feel for you isn’t quiet. It’s loud and inconvenient and demands to be said as often as possible.”

“wasn’t a sea of grief anymore. He was a mountain in my life, maybe even the mountain. No matter where I stood, I could still see him to the west—but I’d gained enough distance that he didn’t dominate my existence anymore. He was a landmark I could guide myself by, comforting in his permanence.”

“grief isn’t a measure of how much someone loved you. It’s the measure of how much you loved them. You have every right to feel however the hell you want to feel.”

“she leaned forward, nudging a bottle of water across the glass coffee table. I twisted off the top and chugged half the bottle, trying to dislodge the tension in my throat—to swallow it down—but it didn’t help. It never did. A few moments passed while I watched the waves crash on the beach outside the window. “I have trouble talking about him,” I finally admitted. “I don’t really know where to start—how to sum him up in words—”

“me you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything.”

“I’m going to love you so well that you’ll never doubt that I choose you. Every day. Every situation. I choose you.”

“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything.”

“Complicated grief happens when your rational mind has accepted the loss, but your emotional mind hasn’t quite gotten there. It keeps you stuck in that first, sharp, acute stage of grief and doesn’t let you move forward.”

“It was twenty-five hundred square feet, had been in my price range, and felt like I did—weathered, beaten, and broken in ways that needed more than just a coat of paint.”