Ted Michael

“Because love, no matter how tragic, is not an ending. It is a test and a textbook; it is a map to undiscovered places and a lexicon of languages yet to be spoken.Love.Really, it is a beginning.”

“Relationships take time. They are days and nights and weeks. They are stretched and worked and kneaded into something you never imagined they could be. But when they are over, the end comes so quickly you barely have time to breathe, to blink. They are minutes and seconds, and one moment you have everything and the next you have nothing. So here’s my question: when you lose the most important person to you in the entire world, where is all the love—love you never even knew you were capable of—supposed to go?”

“Why are the only happy endings the ones where the couples get together?” I ask. “Can’t they just be friends? Can’t that be a happy ending too?”

“Sometimes, the truth comes out in ways you wish it didn’t; all you can do is hope that someday you will be forgiven, that the blemish will be erased from the permanent record known as your soul.”

“You’re never going to be strong by making someone else weak.”

“I have never really understood why people call it falling in love but now, tonight, I do. Because when I drop Garrett off and watch her wave goodbye, I feel like I am furiously out of control and falling fast. But also I feel like I’m flying, like there is wind and air beneath me. I don’t thinkyou can fall and fly at the same time, though; I don’t understand how it would work. It seems that eventually one will win out over the other, and I’m pretty sure it’s much easier to crash than it is to soar.”

“Just because two people don’t wind up spending their entire lives together doesn’t mean their relationship was a failure.”

“Unless you want to drink. Then I won’t, and I can drive you home.”

“...but that’s the thing about best friends—you’re allowed to sound pathetic because they love you unconditionally.”

“I am an idiot for wasting any time thinking about a girl named Garrett who I barely know. Because there is one solid truth about women, and that is this: they never stay.”

“Long distance sucks, but if you love someone, don’t you at least want to try?”

“I swear off dating until someone new and amazing sweeps me off my feet and makes me forget all the hard parts of falling in love.”

“How can you so desperately miss something you never had in the rst place?”

“She wants to be friends. But what does that mean? Were we ever really friends? Friends don’t stay up talking on the phone Every Single Night about Stupid Lit le Things and Most Important Things until it’s light outside. Friends don’t tell each other their most secret secrets. Friends don't hook up. Friends don't ache for each other. They just don't.”

“High school guys are boys. They are totally selfish and immature. They will break your heart into a million pieces and then pick up all of the pieces and cut you with them. College guys, on the other hand are men.”

“So here’s my question: when you lose the most important person to you in the entire world, where is all the love – love you never even knew you were capable of – supposed to go?”

“Love is terrifying and hard and awful but it’s also amazing and beautiful, and there’s something about us, as humans, that wants that perfect relationship even though we know it’s probably unattainable, and even if we do manage to get it, holding on to t, helping it grow into something that will last a lifetime, well… it’s daunting in its impossibility.”

“I have always known there is a difference between loneliness and aloneness. I am alone, but my father is lonely. And if I had to choose one, I would rather be alone.”

“I am a relationship phoenix: I crash and burn and then I rise and start again.”