Variation

“Hudson might be the baddest motherfucker alive to the US Coast Guard, but you put Allie Rousseau in a room with him and he’ll trip over his own feet.”

“Messy is good, love. Messy is where the best parts of life happen. You don’t have to be in control at all times. It’s okay if you fall apart. I promise I will be right here to put you back together if you just let me.”

“So what? Until now, I’ve only dated women I knew wouldn’t ask for a ring. Things change, and I don’t give a shit who she’s dated before, because she’s with me now.”

“So much for not looking at her. And seriously, they’re not allowed to date, and I don’t want to watch you get all angsty over there.”

“Denying you the little orgasm you almost took so I can ruin you with the one I’m going to give you.”

“I told him we’d be best off ignoring each other while I’m here. It’s been years. I’m over it.”

“There’s no one else. Never was. Not for either of us. They were all just placeholders.”

“I’m done trying to prove myself to you, pushing myself until I break, tearing my body to shreds, done trying to win your approval like it’s some kind of game where you keep moving the goalposts. I’m done. I have loved you, worshipped you, idolized you my entire life, but I no longer want your approval. Whatever I do from here on out is for me.”

“Truth always differs depending on who’s telling the story, and in complicated situations, there are countless variations. But when it comes to that summer, in every single variant, I’m the asshole who wasn’t strong enough to hold on to her.”

“Seriously, though. That’s what does it for you? Bated breath and glimmers? Let me guess—he doesn’t tell you he’s about to come, he declares that he’s arriving.”

“I’m the one who needs you. I need you, I always have.”

“So while sure, it makes me jealous that there are a couple of guys here who have seen you naked, I actually feel sorry for them because they’ll never have you again. But I will. First means nothing. Last means everything.”

“Please. Once you master faking an orgasm, any role is easy. This is cake.”

“What are you going to do, Hudson? Fuck me so well that I never want to leave your bed? That I’ll be willing to forget everything in our past because you’re that damn good at dishing out orgasms?”

“It took me until that second summer to realize what the feeling was, but I fell for her the first day I met her. She was clinging to the side of the world’s oldest rowboat, and she lifted her chin and demanded I get Eva to safety first, even though she was bleeding. She asked if I had siblings and said there was nothing more important to her than her sisters. I was a goner and didn’t even know it.”

“The only ballet dancers I know aren’t people I’d really want to spend time with.”

“I want all of you. No masks. No walls. No more pretending what’s between us is fake when we both know it’s excruciating, and terrifying, and amazingly real. I want more than five minutes.”

“I want an explanation as to why my best friend couldn’t be bothered to show up when I needed him most. You had days before you had to report to basic.”