Funny Story

Mom was the only permanent thing in my life, the only thing that mattered

If you want to be friends with someone, you just ask, and if they don’t want to, they’ll probably just tell you.

“You make the people you care about feel like . . .” He pauses. “Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts. And that’s terrifying to someone who’s spent a lifetime avoiding those other pieces of themselves.”

“You make the people you care about feel like . . .” He pauses. “Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts. And that’s terrifying to someone who’s spent a lifetime avoiding those other pieces of themselves.”

“You were gone,” he murmurs.

“Now I’m back,” I whisper.

People can change, I think.

I’m changing.

And it makes being around you feel like—like standing in sunlight.”

Here, tonight, though, I’m in the center of everything. This moment, though fleeting, belongs to me too.

To him, he’s the brother who ran away. To her, he’s the one who stays, even when he shouldn’t.

and I do my best to feel content, to be just another person at the edge of his glow.