Love the one You're With by Emily Giffin . . . Page 2

Pages: 1, 2

"I switch Andy's lamp off again, and get back in bed, feeling as if I should cry, but realizing with a mix of fear and relief that all my emotions are dulled and watered-down versions of what I felt just minutes before when Andy was in the room with me. In fact, I'm so composed and detached that it's almost as if I'm watching the aftermath of another couple's big fight, merely waiting to find out what will happen next: Will she stay or will she go?" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"'Change can be good . . . sometimes,' he says cryptically. 'But it's always tough to let go of the past.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"It is the way we used to talk-our between-the-lines language, seemingly nonsensical, but stepped in meaning. It is a way I've never talked to Andy-who is always so open, candid. I decide, for at least the hundredth time today, that one way isn't better than the other, they are just different." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I fight the urge to rest my head on his shoulder, and close my eyes, realizing that this would be so much easier if I could more neatly categorize my feelings. If Leo was all one thing, and Andy another altogether. But it's not that simple or clear-cut-and I wonder if it ever is when it comes to matters of the heart." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I know that what I'm doing is wrong, weak, indefensible, but I still stay on course, fueling my indignation with a steady diet of grievances: Andy doesn't understand my feelings. Even worse, he doesn't even try to understand my feelings. He left me last night. He hasn't called today or softened his stance at all. He's the one who drew the line in the sand. He's the one who seems to care more about his family, hometown, job, and everything he wants than me. But perhaps most simply, underwriting everything else, he is not Leo. He's not the one who has, since the day I met him, been able to turn me inside out and upside down like no other-for better or worse." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I wish I could freeze this moment, somehow delay my final decision, and just hang here in the balance between two places, two worlds, two loves." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"'I've chased you in my dreams for a long time now, Ellie.' Just like that. From anyone else, the words would sound contrived. But from Leo, they are an honest line from our own epic ballad, written from the heart." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"Suzanne pauses and then says, 'Do you love him?' I'm not sure who she means-Andy or Leo-but either way, I tell her yes, I do. 'Then don't do this,' she says, obviously talking about Andy. 'Suzanne,' I say, glancing down the hall toward Leo. 'It's not that simple.' 'Yes it is,' she says, cutting me off. 'See, that's the thing, Ell. It really is that simple.'" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I hang up with Suzanne and put my head in my hands, overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. I am way too confused to describe what I'm feeling to myself, let alone to Leo, who has just returned to the living room and is now standing over me. One thing is for sure, though-no matter what rationalization I might try to conjure in the moments ahead, there is simply no way to recover from my wake-up, gut-checking conversation." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"Yes, we were young, but in some ways, young love seems the most robust and idealistic, untarnished by everyday hardships. Leo threw in the towel before we were ever really tested. Maybe because he didn't want to be tested. Maybe because he assumed we would fail. Maybe because, at the time, he just didn't love me enough." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"The word settling echoes in my head, gnawing at my heart and filling me with trepidation. It is a word I've avoided for months, even in my own, private thoughts, but I suddenly can't avoid it any longer. In some ways, it feels like the scary heart of the matter-the fear that I settled when I said 'I do' to Andy. That I should have held out for this kind of love. That I should have believed that Leo would, someday, return to me." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"He closes with, 'I miss use'-which is more powerful and compelling than merely missing me-especially because I feel the same way. I miss us, too. I always have, and probably always will. Overcome with grief and the sense of impending, final loss, I touch his hand. Sometimes there are no happy endings. No matter what, I'll be losing something, someone." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"But maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"With a measure of self-serving irony, I reassure myself that perhaps I needed to kiss Leo to really let go of him-and dismiss the notion that staying in my marriage is any version of settling, or that I'm with Andy by default. After all, isn't settling about having no opinions at all? About taking something because it's better than nothing? I finally had a real choice. And I chose." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I realize that for the longest time, I saw Andy as perfect, and our life together as perfect. And in some bizarre way, once Leo came back into my life, this yellow-brick road started to feel like settling. Settling for perfection, for all the things that you're supposed to want. A good family. A beautiful home. Wealth. It was almost as if I discounted my feelings, because surely I couldn't truly be in love with Andy, too, on top of all those check marks in his column. Subconsciously, I think I assumed that any feelings I had for dark, difficult, distant Leo had to be more legitimate. The stuff of sad love songs." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"Or are there always shades of gray when it comes to matters of the heart." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"Then we both cried for a long time, right along with Louisa, until we finally had no choice but to laugh. It was a moment only best friends or sisters could share." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"There were things I considered saying in an enclosed note. Thank you . . . I'm sorry . . . I'll always love you. They were all true-and still are-but were better left unsaid, just as I decided never to confess to Andy how close I came to losing everything. Instead, I hold that day deep within myself, as a reminder that love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin