Because everyone loves someone, and anyone who loves someone has had those desperate nights where we lie awake trying to figure our how we can afford to carry on being human beings. Sometimes that makes us do things that seem ridiculous in hindsight, but which felt like the only way out at the time.
I love you. I’m not just saying that, I really do.
Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she’s aware of this now, while it’s happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person.
Sally Rooney, Normal People.
Marianne told him this thing about her family. He didn’t know what to say. He started telling her that he loved her. It just happened, like drawing your hand back when you touch something hot. She was crying and everything, and he just said it without thinking. Was it true? He didn’t know enough to know that. At first he thought it must have been true, since he said it, and why would he lie? But then he remembered he does lie sometimes, without planning to or knowing why. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the urge to tell Marianne that he loved her, whether or not it was true, but it was the first time he’d given in and said it.
He’s not someone who feels comfortable confiding in others, or demanding things from them. He needs Marianne for this reason. This fact strikes him newly. Marianne is someone he can ask things of. Even though there are certain difficulties and resentments in their relationship, the relationship carries on. This seems remarkable to him now, and almost moving.
I know I’m not a great guy, he said. But I do love you, you know. Of course I do. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I didn’t know if you wanted to hear it. I’m sorry.
I was smiling. My eyes were closed still. It felt good to be wrong about everything. Since when have you loved me? I said.
Since I met you, I would think. If I wanted to be very philosophical about it, I’d say I loved you before then.
People would often ask her What do you dream about when you sleep at night? and she thought this was one of the worst questions they could ever ask.
You see, when she was awake she dreamed about a lot of different things. In her dreams girls would live incredible adventures, regular people discovered hidden civilizations and boys learned about the great secrets of life. She dreamed about mysteries, creatures, love and epic journeys. Random encounters, time travelers, space explorers… some dreams were set in the past, others in the present and some in the future. Dreams of this world and infinite others. Her mind just never stopped creating stories. But all of that happened when she was awake and with her eyes wide open.
People often asked her What do you dream about when you sleep at night? and in fact she hated it because at night, with her eyes closed her mind went blank. She never dreamed in her sleep and when people asked they never believed her when all she could answer was: Nothing.
She often caught herself over excited about fiction. It was not like she had a bad life or like she was not happy. She loved her family, she had great friend, an amazing boyfriend and she even liked her work a lot. No, she was far from unhappy, life was pretty good for her now, but there was a lack of twists that only the stories had.
Thinking about some of the things that happened with her favorite characters she was grateful for a calmer life, still all the twists and turns would keep her awake on some nights wondering what would happen next on their lives.
You see, the point was actually this, she knew that there would always be something new happening on their lives, but not on hers. Once she thought to herself that at least fictional characters solved some of their problems and found new ones when real people only had the same old problems for years.
So she kept going, carrying her old problems that she knew so well they weren’t able to disturb her sleep anymore and feeding on the adventures of the lives of those who only existed in the world of the ideas. A few nights ago she lost sleep considering the effects of an unplanned pregnancy for a character of one show and on the night before she was too happy for winning a bet with her sister on what would happen next to the guy in love with that girl.
Real life had a lot of happy moments and beautiful things but it also had all sorts of boring things like cooking dinner on regular days, washing dishes, doing laundry, shopping for groceries and so many little regular things with no emotions involved… this is why she often caught herself over excited about fiction.
march’s theme is meet uglies e.g. broom collisions, flooing into the other person’s apartment drunk thinking it was their friend’s house, punching the other in the face while gesticulating wildly, meeting on a sunday morning each doing the walk of shame, lily falling asleep on james’ shoulder on the train and drooling all over his nice expensive robes so james demands that she pay for dry cleaning, etc.
example prompt: i’m a celebrity at a bar and i just heard you trash talking me to your buddies bc you have no idea i’m behind you… “hi there, arsehole.”
everyone will create a jily graphic/edit/art/fic based around the theme.
i’ll match everyone into pairs who will receive the same prompt.
you’ll have until the end of the month to post your creation.
how to enter:
reblog this post until february 28th - then i will message you with your partners name and a prompt for your creation. [i get asked a lot so just to clarify, you and your partner are creating different works, just with the same prompt, but are paired because it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and bc i think its nice to exchange things idk]
put what you plan to create in the tags when you reblog this post i.e. #writing, #edits
(optional) if you have a preference for wizarding world versus muggle au prompts, then please let me know in the tags and i’ll try and accommodate.
(optional) follow the jily challenge blog.
when posting:
tag your partner and #jilychallenge (no space) within the first five tags.
your caption should include:
JILY CHALLENGE | @yoururl vs @ yourpartner theme + prompt
