1
" You said no, though,” he says, slightly muffled. “When I asked you out. That one time.”
“Wait, what?”
“That time at work? I asked you to the movies, and you said you would invite Vera?”
I pull back a bit. “That wasn’t—you weren’t asking me out. You said I could come, too, if I wanted. That’s not asking someone out.”
“It was to me,” he says, sheepish, and I want to poke him, but I also kind of want to hug him forever.
“Next time you want to ask someone out, maybe be less subtle. Maybe try to use the word date or together. Maybe phrase it as an actual question, you know, get some upward inflection going at the end of the sentence?”
He just looks at me, a little bit like he wants to poke me, but maybe also hug me forever. Instead he just kisses me, and it’s a long time before we break apart again. "
― Emma Mills , This Adventure Ends
14
" Maybe there are people who love someone so much that when they lose them, they never want to be with anyone else again. But maybe there are people who love someone so much that it makes them want to find that kind of love again. Maybe they loved them so much, they can’t live without that kind of love in their life. And maybe … it’s a kind of love where you don’t have to say it. Where they’re such a part of you and you’re such a part of them that it doesn’t need to be said. Because you already know.”
When I glance up at Gabe again, he has his eyes on me.
“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”
“I like that,” Vera says with a small smile. “I think it must be like that.”
I think about that kind of love as we increase in altitude. How maybe it doesn’t just stand for romance—maybe it works for friendship, too. Maybe there’s a kind of friend love that opens you up … Maybe you didn’t have a place for it within you before, but once it finds you out, crawls inside, and makes space for itself, you can’t live without it ever again.
I look over at Vera, and I think about what she said to me the first day we had lunch together: They never really say that they love each other, but it’s so freaking obvious. Like, Sherlock would straight-up kill for Watson.
“Just so you know,” I say, “I would straight-up kill for you. "
― Emma Mills , This Adventure Ends
