“You are, you know.” “A fighter?” I say. “My home,” he says, and kisses me. We are, I think. We’re home.

“You’re not a vacation, and you’re not the answer to my career crisis, but when I’m in a crisis or I’m sick or I’m sad, you’re the only thing I want. And when I’m happy, you make me so much happier. I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with

You can’t outrun yourself. Not your history, not your fears, not the parts of yourself you’re worried are wrong.

Living, being responsible for myself, seems like an insurmountable challenge lately.

It’s the very fact that it’s finite that makes traveling special. You could move to any one of those destinations you loved in small doses, and it wouldn’t be the spellbinding, life-altering seven days you spent there as a guest, letting a place into your heart fully, letting it change you.

Don’t encourage people to blame you for something beyond your control.

Maybe things can always get better between people who want to do a good job loving each other. Maybe that’s all it takes.

But this, this is the moment I first think it. I am in love with you. The thought is terrifying, probably not even true. A dangerous idea to entertain. I release my hold on it, watch it slip away. But there are points in the center of my palms that burn, scorched, proof I once held it there.

No. I really could not have invented him.