Ugly Love

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I’m just wondering if your mouth hurts like the rest of you hurts, because if it doesn’t, I want to kiss you.” She grins. “My mouth feels great.” I rise up on my elbow so she doesn’t have to roll toward me. I look down on her, and seeing her beneath me feels different now. It feels real. Until yesterday, it really did feel like we had been playing house. Of course, our love is real, and our relationship is real, but until I witnessed her give life to my son yesterday, everything I felt before that moment was like child’s play compared to what I feel for her now. “I love you, Rachel. More than I loved you yesterday.” Her eyes are looking up at me like she knows exactly what I’m talking about. “If you love me more today than you loved me yesterday, then I can’t wait for tomorrow,” she says. My lips fall to hers, and I kiss her. Not because I should but because I need to. ••• I’m standing outside Rachel’s hospital room. She and Clayton are both in the room, napping. The nurse said he hardly even cried. I’m sure she tells all the parents that, but I believe her anyway. I take out my phone to text Ian. Me: He got snipped a few hours ago. Took it like a champ. Ian: Ouch. I’m coming to meet him tonight. I’ll be there after seven. Me: See you then.

iles: What are you doing? e: Homework. iles: Feel like taking a swim break? e: ??? It’s February. iles: The rooftop pool is heated. It doesn’t close for another hour. is new here. I also want to add, for the sake of all the other guys in the classroom, that Rachel is not theirs. She’s mine. But I don’t say anything. I don’t have to, because the only one who needs to be aware that I want Rachel is Rachel. She looks at me and smiles again, taking the only empty seat, all the way across the room. Her eyes tell me she already knows she’s mine. It’s just a matter of time. I want to text Ian and tell her she isn’t hot. I want to tell him she’s volcanic, but he would laugh at that. Instead, I discreetly take a picture of her from where I’m seated. I send the picture in a message to Ian that says, “She’s gonna have all my babies.” Mr. Clayton begins class. Miles Archer becomes obsessed. ••• I met Rachel on Monday. It’s Friday. I’ve said nothing to her since the day we met. I don’t know why. We have three classes together. Every time I see her, she smiles at me like she wants me to talk to her. Every time I work up the courage, I talk myself down. I used to be confident. Then Rachel happened. I gave myself until today. If I didn’t work up the courage throat can’t even make a sound. Her body is crying, but her voice is not. Ruined. Ruined. RUINED. I cry with her. I cry and I cry and I cry and I cry and we cry and we cry and we cry. Ruined.My words completely break him, and I’m consumed with guilt over allowing six years to pass without letting him hear those words. He leans over and wraps his arms tightly around me, pulling me against him. I let him hold me. He holds me for a long time, until all the apologies and forgiveness are absorbed and it’s just us again. No tears. I would be lying if I said I never think about what I did to him. I think about it every day. But I was eighteen and devastated, and nothing mattered to me after that night. Nothing. I just wanted to forget, but every morning I woke up and didn’t feel Clayton by my side, I blamed Miles. I blamed him for saving me, because I had no reason left to live. I also knew in my heart that Miles did what he could. I knew in my heart that it was never his fault, but at that point in my life, I wasn’t capable of rational thought or even forgiveness. At that point in my life, I was convinced I wouldn’t be capable of anything at all but feeling pain. Those feelings never wavered for more than three years. Until the day I met Brad. I don’t know who Miles has, but the familiar struggle in his eyes proves there’s someone. I used to see the same struggle every time I looked in the mirror, unsure if I had it in me to love again. “Do you love her?” I ask him. I don’t need to know her name. We’re beyond that now. I know he isn’t here because he’s still in love with me. He’s here because he doesn’t know how to love at all. He sighs and rests his chin on top of my head. “I’m scared I won’t be able to.” Miles kisses the top of my head, and I close my eyes. I listen to his heart beating inside his chest. A heart he’s claiming isn’t capable of knowing how to love, but in actuality, it’s a heart that loves too much. He loved so much, and that one night took it away from us. Changed

The story centers on their struggles to understand their feelings for the other. Tate must battle whether Miles’ sometimes hurtful actions are worth it. Is he worth it? And Miles must reconcile his past and decipher his own feelings before it’s too late. I loved the buildup of emotion as these two people fell in love. I could feel myself filling up up up with desperate hope and possibility. It was all such a visceral experience. So many emotions. So many ups and downs. So many feels. All wonderfully chaotic.He pulls out a spool of thread and hands it to me. “Do your best.” “It’s not like I’m sewing on a damn button, Miles.” “I’m not spending the whole day in an emergency room for a cut. Just do what you can. I’ll be fine.” I don’t want him to spend the day in an emergency room, either. That means he wouldn’t be here. “If your hand gets infected and you die, I’m denying any part in this.” “If my hand gets infected and I die, I’d be too dead to blame you.” “Good point,” I say. I clean his wound again, then take the supplies I’ll need and lay them out on the counter. I can’t get a good angle with how we’re positioned, so I stand up and prop my leg on the edge of the tub. I put his hand on my leg. I put his hand on my leg. Oh, hell. This isn’t gonna work with his arm draped across my leg like this. If I want my hands to remain calm and not shake, I’m going to need to reposition us. “This won’t work,” I say, turning to face him. I take his hand and rest it on the counter, then stand directly in front of him. The other way worked better, but I can’t have him touching my leg while I do this. “It’s gonna hurt,” I warn. He laughs as though he knows pain and to him, this isn’t pain. I pierce his skin with the needle, and he doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t make a sound. He watches me work quietly. Every now and then, he looks up from my hand and watches my face. We don’t speak, like always. I try to ignore him. I try to focus on his hand and his wound and how it desperately needs to be closed, but our faces are so close, and I can feel his breath on my cheek every time he exhales. And he begins to exhale a lot. That was the conversation that led to this moment. Me, sitting in front of my dad on the couch. My dad, telling me something I don’t care to hear. “I would have told you sooner, Miles. I just—” “Felt guilty?” I interrupt. “Like you’re doing something wrong?” His eyes meet mine, and I begin to feel bad for saying what I said, but I push the feeling down and keep going. “She’s been dead less than a year.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to throw up. He doesn’t like being judged, especially by me. He’s used to my supporting his decisions. Hell, I’mused to supporting his decisions. Until now, I always thought he made good ones. “Look, I know this is hard for you to accept, but I need your support. You have no idea how hard it’s been for me to move on since she died.” “Hard?” I’m standing. I’m raising my voice. I’m acting like I give a shit for some reason, when I really don’t. I Very impressive, Corbin,” I say out loud as I walk from room to room and flip on all the lights, inspecting what has just become my temporary home. I kind of hate that it’s so nice. It’ll make it harder to want to find my own place once I get enough money saved up. Colleen Hoover once again proves she’s a master storyteller in her best and boldest work to date. She pens the novel in a unique and thematically symbolic format that renders a one-of-a-kind fluidity and motion to how the story ebbs and flows. How it recedes. How it crests and surges with every emotionally charged moment as Miles reluctantly falls in love with Tate, and in turn, how Tate falls for Miles despite his best efforts to keep her away. Their story isn’t typical, but it’s one that is all about feeling. Feeling too little and feeling too much. Feeling so much that you shut down and feeling not enough that you hurt others. And despite the fact that their coming together isn’t a fairytale, it shows that sometimes a happily ever after costs a great many tears and heartache. That beautiful, forever love can come from ugly, broken love… if you just believe in a person enough to not give up.