Holly Riordan

“I woke up in a wooded area a few feet away from the playground of my former elementary school naked, covered in grass stains and my blood, gasping for air because this dude decided to choke me until I lost consciousness.”

She is going to get bored of you, because the chase is fun at first. So is the flirting and the late night conversations. But eventually, she’s going to want more than that. She’s going to want something real.

She wishes she could tell someone I like you, I want to be with you without coming across as a creep.

It’s hard for her to wake up without dreading the day, for her to stand tall in a room full of girls she wished she looked more like.

You can’t date someone that gets pissed at you for being quiet and fidgety around their friends. You can’t date someone that hates how you choose the aisle seat at movie theaters and buses, in case you need to escape.

She feels like she’s broken, because she doesn’t do what girls her age are supposed to do. She doesn’t party. She doesn’t go out on dates. She doesn’t live wild and free.

Scorpio: You curse like crazy. It’s hard for you to complete a sentence without throwing the F word in there somewhere.

He never uses the word us. He still thinks of himself as an individual. Not as part of a team. Not as part of a couple.

Taurus: Take a risk by reaching out to the person in your past you can’t stop thinking about.

You can’t have her all to yourself when you’re only willing to give her tiny pieces of yourself. You can’t encourage this one-sided love.

I feel alone when it’s midnight and sleep refuses to find me. When I think about all of the people that I want to text, but would never text. All of the people that I still think about on a daily basis but have probably forgotten about me long ago.

You don’t realize that she’s hurting, because she’s perfected her fake smile, her fake laugh. She knows how to look like she’s having the time of her life when she’s secretly dying inside. She knows how to fool you into believing she’s okay.

If he keeps making empty promises, if he keeps showing up late to dates, if he keeps disappointing you over and over again, then he clearly has no respect for you.

I wonder why the group of girls that just walked past me started laughing — even though chances are it wasn’t about me at all. I wonder why some stranger has been staring at me — even if they only glanced.

She doesn’t want to let anyone down. She doesn’t want to let herself down. She puts way too much pressure on herself.

“The freaky part was straight ahead at my head level was a round red splatter pattern on the back wall that had been painted over with a coat of white paint.”

Sometimes, romance is cleaning up the house when she says she’s going to be home late from work. Sometimes, romance is giving her a massage when she says she’s feeling sore. Sometimes, romance is free.

I refuse to send the first text, because I refuse to admit that I’m the one who cares more.