Get a Life, Chloe Brown

So I’m doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps.

Love is certainly never safe, but it’s absolutely worth it.

Bravery wasn't an identity, so much as a choice.

You always say such lovely things to me, Red. Do you say them to yourself?

Life hurts,” he said fiercely. “It’s unavoidable. But I know the difference between torture and growing pains.

You think this is a big deal because, no offense, you've had a lot of people in your life who claimed to care about you but didn't act like it. That's not me. I can cook, and right now, you can't. So I'm doing it for you because that's how people should behave; they should fill in each other's gaps. Don't think about it too hard.

You were hurt, and you reacted. You were in an unhealthy situation in more ways than one, and you panicked and cleansed everything with fire. Don’t dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don’t reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.

I started feeling afraid of my own body, like it was a torture chamber I’d been trapped inside.

Red,' she whispered. 'You don't always have to be okay.' She leaned closer and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He was still for a moment. But then he looked at her, and smiled, and murmured, "I know. But I am okay, with you.

She was the woman who’d come here to ask about love. She was the woman who’d decided to change her entire life with nothing but a list. She was the woman who survived, every single day. She was Chloe fucking Brown, and she was starting to wonder if she’d been brave from the beginning. If she’d just needed to love herself enough to realize it.

Whether something bad is coming from your body or your brain, it makes no difference. Still feels like shit, right? Still hurts. Still needs fixing. They shouldn’t have dismissed you, even if it was in your head. When it comes down to it, everything we feel is in our heads.

You are a woman who, in a life filled with pain, came here to ask about love.

I watched because...when you paint," she said softly. "You seem so vital. It was addictive. It felt like coming to life.

When she was sick and tired of being sick and tired, she clung to moments like this : The first shower after a flare-up. Bliss should be held on to with both hands.

I am not hurt,” she said, “I am in pain.

Chloe knew she was flesh and blood and bone, just like him. But she wasn’t alive like he was. Not even close.

And then Chloe would be forced to remember all the things she'd lost, and to wonder, for the thousandth time, what it was about her that made her so easy to leave.

She missed him. She missed him so much that she was starting to hate him.

she saw him as poetry

There's a big difference between being a coward and putting your emotional safety first," he said.

I need you. I'm desperate for you I'm something without you, and I'll survive without you, but I don't fucking want to, so Jesus, please don't make me.

He loved Chloe. He loved Chloe like a blank canvas and a finished piece and all the exhilarating, painful, stop-and-start moments in between. He loved Chloe like tearing through the night on his Triumph, feeling alive in motion when he couldn't feel alive inside.

Don't dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don't reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.

Excuse me, universe,” she whispered to the kitchen floor. “When you almost murdered me today—which was rather brutal, by the way, but I can respect that—were you trying to tell me something?” The universe, very enigmatically, did not respond.

Will you answer me? You don't have to." But he would, because he loved her. The thought froze him for a second before he sank into it like a feather bed. Before it became the comfort that helped him figure out how to speak. He loved Chloe. He loved Chloe like a blank canvas and a finished piece and all the exhilarating, painful, stop-and-start moments in between.

He was probably the worst kind of monster because Chloe was sick, but he still thought she was unbelievably sexy. Then he remembered that she was always sick, so maybe poor health wasn’t something that should de-sex a person.

Try not to wet yourself with excitement, you big nerd.

His focus was formidable, it stilled the earth and stopped time. It made her feel... But that was it. That was all. Red's focus simply made her feel.

Like being unwell was a crime or a scam or a self-indulgence.

some of us have so many marginalizations, we might drown if we let all the little hurts flood in. So there are those, like me, who filter. I think you’ve noticed that I filter a lot. It’s not some inbuilt shield made of money. It’s just something I’m forced to do.