“On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the coldest days you have to seek out a spot of warmth; on the bleakest days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give them a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again.”

“Swallow the tears back often enough and they’ll start feeling like acid dripping down your throat. It’s that terrible moment when you’re sitting still so still so still because you don’t want them to see you cry you don’t want to cry but your lips won’t stop trembling and your eyes are filled to the brim with please and I beg you and please and I’m sorry and please and have mercy and maybe this time it’ll be different but it’s always the same. There’s no one to run to for comfort. No one on your side. Light a candle for me, I used to whisper to no one. Someone. Anyone. If you’re out there. Please tell me you can feel this fire.”

“You’ll be fine. You didn’t even break anything. You messed up your knuckles and your brain freaked out a little and basically you just fell asleep for three days. I don’t call that an injury,” he says. “I call that a god- damn vacation.”

“Someone picked up the sun and pinned it to the sky again, but every day it hangs a little lower than the day before. It's like a negligent parent who only knows one half of who you are. It never sees how its absence changes people. How different we are in the dark.”

“we write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are.”

“So, what—you just walk right past me? Don’t even say hello?” He clutches the socks to his chest. “I’m crushed. I saved us a table and everything.”I glance at him. Keep walking.He catches up. “I’m serious. Do you have any idea how awkward it is to wave at someone and have them ignore you? And then you’re just looking around like a jackass, trying to be all, ‘No, really, I swear, I know that girl’ and no one believes y—”

“I’ve fallen for her…So hard. I’ve hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have if felt this. Nothing like this…I’ve known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching. Love is a heartless bastard. I’m driving myself insane.”