Taylor Jenkins Reid

People think that intimacy is about sex.

But intimacy is about truth.

When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy.

I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.

A moment that creates a “before” and an “after.”

“You and I aren’t going to spend our lives together,” Jesse says. “But I finally understand that that doesn’t take away any of the beauty of the fact that we were right for each other once.”

“True love doesn’t always last,” I say. “It doesn’t always have to be for a lifetime.”

“Right. And that doesn’t mean it’s not true love,” Jesse says.

It was real.

And now it’s over.

And that’s OK.

“I am who I am because I loved you once,” he says.

“I am who I am because I loved you once, too,” I say.

And then we say good-bye.

You don’t tie yourself to something unless you’re scared you might float away.

I think that perhaps everyone has a moment that splits their life in two. When you look back on your own timeline, there’s a sharp spike somewhere along the way, some event that changed you, changed your life, more than the others.

It’s simply a matter of who’s willing to go and take it for themselves. And you, Monique, are a person who has proven to be willing to go out there and take what you want. So be honest about that. No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.”

“What are you getting at?”

But I wanted to push the envelope.

I broke Celia’s heart because I spent half my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her.