The Falling in Love Montage

History is who we are,” I say finally. “The past shapes us. Even the parts you can’t remember.

See, the thing about the falling in love montage," she said, her voice hoarse, "is that when it's over, the characters have fallen in love.

That was one of the hardest things about breaking up. It's not a pair of bookends, the beginning and the end... It's all the things we used to do that we'd never do again and all the things we'd never do for the first time together.

How about life's too short to be second-guessing yourself the whole way? You can only go with what you feel right now and if you feel like it might make you happy, even for a while, jump in with both feet, girl, and get wet.

I don’t believe there’s one right person for everyone, and I spent fifty-one years with the same woman. But I do believe there’s a right person for you at different times in your life. Whether that relationship lasts a week or fifty years is not what makes it special.

Was this what being straight was like? A boy in your bedroom making a mess? Not for the first time, I thanked God I was a lesbian.

If you truly love someone, if they were ever important to you, it doesn't disappear. What it looks like might change, but that's only the surface

I wanted to tell her how much I liked her, how I felt this tugging feeling in my stomach that drew me close to her, but I couldn’t let the words out of my mouth because it felt like unleashing something I couldn’t control.

Maybe that’s what a relationship means, carrying a part of someone around for the rest of your life.

I like having something that can't ever change. It's already happened.

I forgot what it was like to be kissed by someone who might want more than a kiss. I knew then that Ruby was definitely not experimenting. I should have been scared. I should have left the room. I should never have gone upstairs with a girl who made me wobble.

Nothing good starts with I hope you'll be happy for me. The phrase is loaded with the unsaid ending because you won't be happy for yourself.

She flipped her hair over to the opposite side. My stomach flipped over to its opposite side.

Love didn't just disappear did it? Mine didn't. It wasn't some light I could switch on and off. It was something that had grown inside me, its roots tangled around all the organs of my body.

I'm just. A girl. Standing in front. Of another girl, asking her. To please accept. This grand. Gesture. As an apology for being an absolute gobshite.

Relationships change and the past isn’t some static thing you could keep forever like a photograph. No one else seems to understand that. Just because something happened, it doesn’t mean it will mean the same thing to you forever. It changes with you.

When you truly love someone, it doesn't go away,

In fact, a whole ex-girlfriend themed ghost train sounded genuinely terrifying. You'd get in and instead of a mummy mannequin covered in toilet roll popping out, it's her and you look down and you're wearing a baggy old jumper with a stain on the front. You turn the corner and you find yourself being forced to scroll through her Instagram and there are replies from a girl with tattoos and she looks exactly like the celebrity your ex fancies most. Right at the end, they play a video on a loop that's just screenshots of all the pathetic texts you sent when you were too heartbroken to have any dignity.

I thought about how amazing it was that this moment would exist forever. Perfect and unchanged. A moment where I always be madly in love with Ruby Quinn.

It’s a pet peeve of mine that straight women call their friends “girlfriends.” They are not your girlfriends. If you are not getting up close and personal with the lady garden then there are words for that: friends, mates, buddies, pals, etc., etc. Leave us our word, OK?

Was it possible to have your cake and then not be sad when your cake leaves you and smashes your heart into a mushy pulp?

The roller coaster here gives off the distinct aura of taking your life into your own hands, but I hear life-threatening circumstances bring people together, so why not?

The water hit me in parts that don’t usually see the great outdoors and I responded with a high-pitched squeal. “Get you in the fanny, did it?” Ruby said knowingly.

I’m a dressmaker, dear. I always come prepared.” She patted a utility belt around her waist. Barbman to the rescue.

I don’t believe in love at first sight or soul mates or any of that guff you see in the movies. You know, where you meet someone in an impossibly coincidental way and you lock eyes and true, everlasting love ensues.

Instead of moving on, it felt like everything behind me was being wiped out, as though I had conjured it into being and when I wasn't looking it all disappeared.

See, the thing about the falling in love montage,” she said, her voice hoarse, “is that when it’s over, the characters have fallen in love.

That's how I was feeling too. Except when I started feeling that way it made me want to be close to you, to share things with you, not to pull away.

I love you. But I’m not in love with you.” It’s such a cliché I didn’t even really know what it meant. How was in love different from love?