The Summer We Forgot

We don’t choose people. Our hearts do. And they’re little saboteurs, always trying to get themselves broken.

We’re not what people have done to us. We’re not what we’ve done to ourselves. We’re not the past. We’re the future. Not what’s been done. What we’ll do.

In the pursuit of perfection, I forgot I was already enough.

Knowing him was sweatpants and suntans and riding in his Jeep until the sky turned pink and purple. Growing up with him involved the best days, fishing off his dock as crickets chirped in the background, watching outdoor movies until we fell asleep on his old bedspread. It was love. It was young. And I feel it all still, burning in the places it shouldn’t be. Even though he betrayed me.

I could tell him I love him, but love seems too cliché, too overdone. I feel love, but I also feel jokes and front porch fights, pinky promises and friendship bracelets. I feel rolling my eyes when he made fun of my favorite songs, yelling at him when he paired up with Ashley Olson on our seventh-grade field day. I feel love, but I also feel our history, years and years of choosing him, the good and bad, highs and lows. Choosing to love. Not despite the flaws. Because of them. Because the mistakes prove we were together long enough to make them. Because we knew each other at our worst and even then, no one else compared.

Attraction, in my experience, isn’t based on whether someone is the sexiest or most intriguing. Attraction is looking at a girl—that girl—and knowing without a doubt she’s the home I’ve always wanted. Knowing I could spend every day looking at her and still believe she’s the loveliest, kindest, most wonderful person who ever breathed.

Funny how perfection can mean a million things. Tonight, it’s a boy and supermarket salads, the air tasting of salt and second chances, and a butterfly feeling in my chest.

I want to kiss him better than the girls before me. I want to make forgetting me impossible so whenever he closes his eyes, he relives this moment over and over, hands tangled in hair, lips held captive. Remembering me until I am his memory.

Because the memories we leave with people matter just as much as the time spent with them

They didn't save me from being alone. They saved me from thinking no one cared about my hurt.

Dad tells me there’s no such thing as easy, no foolproof way to get through life unscathed. Every decision brings challenges. So, we don’t get easy. We only choose our hard. And if us is even on the table, believe me when I say you’re the easiest hard choice I’ll ever make.

The people we welcome into our beginnings influence where we go

Loving him was honest, sky blushed pink, hair stiff with salt as we raced down the beach. At fourteen, he said, “Hurting you won’t ever be my way of fixing me.” He meant it.

High school is four years. Think about that. If you lived to a hundred, high school would only take up 4 percent of your life. No time at all. So, why does high school define a lot? Why do its memories weigh heavy?

Funny thing was . . . I thought the people in my life were toxic until I realized I was the poison.

The burn hurts, but once you shed it, you see the softer skin beneath, and it’s like the sun cleansed you. It didn’t give you a new skin. It showed what you had by erasing the old stuff.

Secrets construct a bulwark within me. I am closet bins and dark rooms and currents dragging me down and down. I want to escape myself. If I could speak truth without consequences, I’d invite everyone into my silence and beg them to rescue me.

We try to be perfect to meet other people's expectations. But making good choices--I think that's on us. We do good because we see value in good.

We all feel eloquence we can’t put into words.

The bad stuff won’t go away. Not that simple. We can’t erase our mistakes or trauma. We must look them in the eyes, remember, and live forward. That’s how it goes.

She nestles against my side, tucked beneath my arm. I stare at her and don’t look away in case all this is a dream. I never want to wake up from her.

You do everything for everyone, and you never expect anything in return. You’re just there for people even when they don’t show up for you.

I feel love, but I also feel our history, years and years of choosing him, the good and bad, highs and lows. Choosing to love. Not despite the flaws. Because of them. Because the mistakes prove we were together long enough to make them. Because we knew each other at our worst and even then, no one else compared.

Choosing to love. Not despite the flaws. Because of them. Because the mistakes prove we were together long enough to make them. Because we knew each other at our worst and even then, no one else compared.

Attraction in my experience, isn't based on whether someone is the sexiest or most intriguing. Attraction is looking at a girl - that girl - and knowing without a doubt she's the home I've always wanted. Knowing I could spend every day looking at her and still believe she's the loveliest, kindest, most wonderful person who ever breathed" -Morgan

For as long as I’ve known him, even at our worst, he’s brought sunlight to rival my poor weather.