Shaun David Hutchinson

Having choices is the problem. Everything would be easier if someone told me what to do: push the button, stop seeing Marcus, get over Jesse. The problem with choices is that I usually make the wrong ones.

That’s the problem with memories: you can visit them, but you can’t live in them.

“Writing’s like painting. You have to write about yourself before you can write about anything else.”

“There’s an amazing world out there for you to discover, Henry Denton, but you have to be willing to discover yourself first.”

You spend your life hoarding memories against the day when you’ll lack the energy to go out and make new ones, because that’s the comfort of old age. The ability to look back on your life and know that you left your mark on the world. But I’m losing my memories. It’s like someone’s broken into my piggy bank and is robbing me one penny at a time. It’s happening so slowly, I can hardly tell what’s missing

While there are some memories I wish I could dispose of, sometimes my memories are the only things that keep me sane. There are times when I walk along the beach and smell the hot tar and sand, and I think of all the summer days Jesse and I spent lying in the sun, making our plans to rule the world. Then there are times when I see something funny on TV or hear a great song, and I pick up my phone to text Jesse before I remember he’s dead, and the wound tears open, bloody and raw all over again. A person can become a part of you as real as your arm or leg, and even though Jesse is dead, I still feel the weight of that phantom limb.

“He’s not the kind of guy I figured you’d go for.”
“He isn’t.”
“Then why?”
“Because he’s not Jesse.” It was the first time I’d admitted it to myself. Marcus and Jesse were so different. Jesse had never called me Space Boy, he never would have hit me, hadn’t cared what his friends thought, and I’d never felt ashamed of who I was with him. Jesse had loved me.

he’s not really boyfriend material. I mean, is that honestly who you want to be with?”

Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long dead and buried deep.

I’m starting to like him, and that’s a losing scenario for everyone.