“Each guy stamped the passport of my heart. “You’re worthy.” Stamp. “You’re enough.” “You have not failed completely.” Stamp, stamp.”

“Go for it, my heart said, my heart always said.”

“I threw his framed picture off my balcony just to hear my heart break.”

“We kissed each other until we were too tired to keep going. I could still feel him holding back. It was my penance for what I had done to him. All I could do was hope the walls would fall and that I could have all of him again, but I was always leaving and he was tired of watching me walk away. We both knew that I couldn’t stay and that he couldn’t come with me, but still, we couldn’t let go.”

“That’s how it felt – that the loss of him had a life of its own. I lived with it as I could have lived with him. Some nights it was quiet and sometimes it pounded on my door.”

“I remembered learning from my favorite professor at Belmont to “surround yourself with people who are better than you,” and I was now living that mantra.”

“I was girly and friendly and my family life was happy but many days I felt like I was on the inside what Chase was on the outside. I always believed I was a happy person with a sad soul. I felt like I had had tragedy in my life when I hadn’t. Somehow, without having experienced what he had, his scars resonated with me.”