Julie Johnson

Take a risk on messy. Live Fearlessly. Love recklessly. Most of all, just love.

When you__e spent your whole life not being good enough, it takes time to let yourself believe that you finally are. Self-worth isn__ a switch that flips inside you. It__ a daily struggle not to sabotage your own success. Not to cave into the voices inside your head that whisper you__e not good enough, or you__l fuck things up, or that someone else could do things better than you.

People are always waiting around for that magical person who__l walk into their life and fix them, who__l offer up some vital piece they__e been missing and make them complete. They spend years trying to fit their broken edges against another person__ and call themselves whole and healed. The only problem with this, of course, is that expecting anyone else to fix you is an unequivocal disaster.You can't wait for a man to come around and put you back together. You have to put yourself back together first, and become the kind of woman who deserves a good man.

When you start to fall, don't try to talk yourself out of it. The right man will be there at the bottom, to catch you.

Of all the people in the world who could've won the seat next to mine at that playoff game... it was you, Gemma. You. The one person on the planet who might just understand me.

Just fuck me up.A caffeine-addict placing an order with the barista.

Marrying one woman doesn__ mean spending your life with one woman, because the funny girl you fall in love with on a first date at twenty-eight eventually becomes the fascinating creature you propose to at thirty, then evolves into the stunning bride you wait for at the end of an aisle at thirty-two, and finally grows into the astounding mother to your children at thirty-four. By forty, she has blossomed into the businesswoman, the force to be reckoned with. By the time you__e fifty or sixty or seventy or a hundred, she__ been everything _ your wife, your lover, your friend, your companion, your sous-chef, your travel partner, your life coach, your confidant, your cheerleader, your critic, your most stalwart advisor. She grows with you. She changes with you. She is always stable, but never stagnant. She is not one woman. She is a thousand versions of herself, a multitude of layers, an infinite ocean whose depths you plumb over a lifetime, whose many treasures and intricacies, quirks and idiosyncrasies you need an entire marriage to explore._ His voice softens. __ man should be so lucky to spend his life stuck with one woman such as that.

Wyatt__ lips flatten into a serious line. His voice goes low, laced with passion. __arrying one woman doesn__ mean spending your life with one woman, because the funny girl you fall in love with on a first date at twenty-eight eventually becomes the fascinating creature you propose to at thirty, then evolves into the stunning bride you wait for at the end of an aisle at thirty-two, and finally grows into the astounding mother to your children at thirty-four. By forty, she has blossomed into the businesswoman, the force to be reckoned with. By the time you__e fifty or sixty or seventy or a hundred, she__ been everything _ your wife, your lover, your friend, your companion, your sous-chef, your travel partner, your life coach, your confidant, your cheerleader, your critic, your most stalwart advisor. She grows with you. She changes with you. She is always stable, but never stagnant. She is not one woman. She is a thousand versions of herself, a multitude of layers, an infinite ocean whose depths you plumb over a lifetime, whose many treasures and intricacies, quirks and idiosyncrasies you need an entire marriage to explore._ His voice softens. __ man should be so lucky to spend his life stuck with one woman such as that._-Julie Johnson, "The Monday Girl

Until he taught me to fl, I didn't realize how deep beneath the earth I'd buried my hopes and dreams.

A boy made of stardust and selfishness; a girl filled with fire and fury at the world. We are a tangle of emotional wreckage, two broken messes thrown together, trying to navigate something we can barely comprehend.

I was alone, for twenty-five years. And I didn't give a shit, because I didn't know what I was missing. Then, this stubborn, beautiful fucking brunette came barreling into my life and shoved her way through all the shadows.

The way I see it, everyone__ been telling the story wrong. I mean, take Cinderella, for example. She never asked for a Prince, let alone waited around for one. Hell, all she ever wanted was a night off from work and a fancy dress to twirl in for a few hours. It__ never made sense to me that I__ supposed to sit around pining for some mythical Prince Charming to get off his ass and rescue me. If that__ the grand game plan, I could end up waiting forever. Because, I mean, if he__ anything like the rest of the male population, the prince is probably stuck in traffic somewhere, or got lost along the way and is too damn stubborn to ask for directions.

Nate and me... we aren't built for truces, for good times, for light jokes and giggles. We're meant for the shadows. For the dirty, ugly, secret parts of our souls, the parts we can't hide because we know each other too well.

Maybe you're right, Red. Maybe I am hateful. Maybe I ruined your life. Maybe I'm the devil, and the worst thing that ever happened to you, and a million other awful things... But did you ever stop to think that even if I am a monster... I might be your soulmate, anyway?

Did you ever stop to think that even if I am a monster, I might be your soulmate anyway?

No amount of soul searching would fix my past. There was no magical Band-Aid I could stick on my heart, no special glue I could use to make myself whole again. I had shattered to pieces like a fragile vase on concrete; some fragments could be roughly cobbled back together, but many of my vital parts had simply turned to dust, pulverized and scattered by the first gust of wind.

People say love isn__ supposed to be painful. But maybe the best things in life are the ones that hurt the most after they__e gone.

I find some small, twisted comfort in thinking that perhaps we used each other. Him, for a glimpse into what it would be like to live a life entirely different from the one he'd been raised to desire, and me for the steady diet of angst and emotional damage that seemed to make me better, sharper, like a sword against a whetstone.I was his intellectual escape from a long parade of pretty, empty girls... and he was my drug of choice -- unhealthy, probably lethal, but ultimately so addictive it was hard to turn away.The problem, of course, with this theory of mutual exploitation, is that it is the deepest of lies. There was nothing equal or mutual about the way we used each other. I barely scratched his surface while he sliced me limb from limb.There's no comfort in that. None at all.