Love on the Brain

A mother, a sundress, a stolen base: the anatomy of a kept memory.

All the neighborhood kids played kickball in the street for hours that night, and the adults even joined us for a game. At one point, my mother was high-fiving Michael after stealing home base in her floral sundress and wedge sandals. That moment was pressed in my memories like a yellowed photograph in an antique album.

Better Than the Movies · Lynn Painter

To be the one always understood, and never the one doing the understanding.

I never had to beg for your attention, and I’m not sure you’ll ever fully understand how safe that became for me, knowing you were giving it to me willingly. I never had to ask you to see me, to understand me, and I’m sorry that I haven’t allowed you to be able to say the same. But I promise you, Isaiah, now that my eyes have been opened, I can’t keep them off you.

Play Along · Liz Tomforde

The kiss that makes the years before it feel like sleep.

What Rhys knew was that kissing her had felt like waking up. Like he’d been drifting sleepily through everything for the past nine years until he tasted her mouth again and remembered what actually being alive felt like. Better than any magic, Vivienne’s kiss.

The Ex Hex · Erin Sterling