Only a Breath Apart

Pain is what makes you grow, it’s what makes you mature, it’s what helps lead you to the path you are meant to be on. If everything is good all the time, there would never be change.

We’re human, and we’re built to make mistakes. Success isn’t making the right choice every time. Success is trying again after you’ve failed.

Are you in love with her?”… “I think I was born in love with her.

You’ve been asleep for a very long time,” she whispers. “It’s time to wake up, Scarlett. There’s a whole world of possibility waiting for you.

The point I'm making is that you can choose to look at the tough moments as failures or you can choose to look at them as a bad few minutes in a good day. It's okay to feel sorry for yourself for a few seconds, but then you need to pick yourself up and brush yourself off. If you do that, you never fail.

You love me?” she says. “I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember not loving you.” It’s always been there – as easy and beautiful as the sun rising in the morning.

Do you want me to walk you home?” he asks. “Do you want me to go home?” “Scarlett, there are two times that I can breathe in deeply without wincing in pain, and being with you is one of them. If I could, I’d keep you here forever.

Failure and success isn’t an all-or-nothing. It’s a little bit of both and everything in between.

I'm sick and tired of adults acting like we're glass that will shatter if we fall. Sometimes thay need to let us fall. Sometimes we need to make our own mistakes. Sometimes, adults need to butt out.

Sometimes, there aren't words and that's okay.

I love you, Scarlett. We’ve been connected for as long as I can remember, and I want more than a connection, I want us to make it to forever.

There’s something more than friendship between us. A trust and love that had taken root when we were children, something that has grown, something that once took a wrong turn and had to be pruned. Something that has been allowed to reflourish and is on the verge of going wild.

There’s no one who has ever gotten me the way you do. No one who understands this land like you either. I’ve messed up in the past, but I promise, I won’t mess up again. I’m here, and I promise I’m never going away.

I can’t keep living like this. I can’t keep being who everyone wants me to be.

You walking away hurt me! That name hurt me! You were supposed to be my best friend and friends don’t do what you did to me!” “We can rehash this as much as you want, but it won’t change what I did or why. I made a mistake. You either forgive me or you don’t, but I’m telling you I’m sorry, and if I could take it back, I would.” She draws in several deep breaths, and after the longest silence of my life, she meets my eyes again. “Do you regret it?” “Every. Damn. Day.

I don’t know what being friends means anymore. Not just with you, but with anyone. There’s something wrong with me. When I look inside me, I don’t see anything. I’m empty.” … “You burned the friendship bridge between us years ago then danced in the ashes. After how you treated me, there’s no going back.

It’s as if the sun has melted off her outer shell and has revealed the girl I once knew, and a woman I want to get to know.

Holes in hearts hurt, and I have too many holes for me to be breathing.

As if you're a shadow on the wall attached to the horror. Your pain is the ghost of the smack you witnessed, but it's still pain. Just a different type of pain. Your body may not be cut or bruised, but your soul is ripped apart all the same.

Do you ever wish you were somebody else?” … “I used to feel that way,” he says. “About wanting to be somebody else.” I inhale his sweet, dark scent and I became a big light-headed from his presence. “How did you make it stop?” Because I so desperately need answers to fill the hole in my soul. “I spend time with you, and because you let me, I held you in my bed. Why would I want to be anyone else when I get to be the guy who holds you?

Why did you stop talking to me?” she asks. “After all those years of seeing each other day in and day out, why did you stop being my friend?” She pauses, and I lower my head because each and every word is a paper cut on my heart. “What did I do wrong?” I shake my head because I got nothing. Nothing that will make sense to her. What’s worse, I don’t have anything that makes sense to me. At least not anymore.

The point I’m making is that you can choose to look at the tough moments as failures or you can choose to look at them as a bad few minutes in a good day. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself for a few seconds, but then you need to pick yourself up and brush yourself off. If you do that, you never fail.

Pain is what makes you grow, it's what makes you mature..

To survive, I need my land. To survive, she needs to leave.