An Excerpt from The Catastrophic History of You and Me
There’s always that one guy who gets a hold on you. Not like your best friend’s brother who gets you in a headlock kind of hold. Or the little kid you’re babysitting who attaches himself to your leg kind of hold.
I’m talking epic. Life changing. The “can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do your homework, can’t stop giggling, can’t remember anything but his smile” kind of hold. Like, Wesley and Buttercup proportions. Harry and Sally. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The kind of hold in all your favorite ’80s songs, like the “Must Have Been Love”s, the “Take My Breath Away”s, the “Eternal Flame”s—the ones you sing into a hairbrush-microphone at the top of your lungs with your best friends on a Saturday night.
The very same hold you read about in your big sister’s diary when she’s out with her boyfriend, and you hope and pray and beg that it’ll happen to you, but then it does and you go completely and totally insane and lose your entire grip on reality or any sense of how things used to be before he walked into your life and ruined everything.
Love’s super-sneaky like that. It creeps up the second you turn your head to check how cute your butt looks in that new pair of jeans. The minute you’re distracted by the SATs, or who kissed who at your best friend’s Sweet Sixteen, or the fact that you didn’t get the lead in Into the Woods (I hate you, Maggie Elliot), and now you have to play Cinderella, when everyone knows it isn’t as good a part as the witch.
Until suddenly you wake up one morning and realize The Truth: that some boy—a boy you’ve known your whole life who you never even dreamed would be actual boyfriend-material; a boy you never even thought was that cute; a boy who’s kind of a dork and always wears that same skateboard T-shirt; a boy who is obsessed with The Lord of the Rings and the dragon tattoo he’s going to get on his leg when he turns eighteen—is suddenly All You Can Think About.
The problem is, there is absolutely nothing “fun” about falling in love. Nope. Mostly it just makes you feel sick and crazy and anxious and nervous that it’s going to end miserably and ruin your whole life. And guess what: Then it does.
Okay, yes, he smells amazing. And yes, you melt whenever he texts you to say good night, and yes, his eyes are soooo blue. And yes, he holds your hand on the way to geometry and he gets your weird little secrets and he makes you laugh so hard you snort your Mountain Dew in front of him but you don’t care even though it’s the most embarrassing thing ever. And yes, when he kisses you, the rest of the world disappears and your brain shuts off and all you can feel are his lips and nothing else matters.
And yes, he tells you that you’re beautiful, and suddenly, you are.
News flash: The whole thing is a huge mess and a giant nightmare and it’s all about to explode in your face and you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. Love is no game. People cut their ears off over this stuff. People jump off the Eiffel Tower and sell all their possessions and move to Alaska to live with the grizzly bears, and then they get eaten and nobody hears them when they scream for help. That’s right. Falling in love is pretty much the same thing as being eaten alive by a grizzly bear.
Believe me, I should know.
Because, did I mention? It happened to me. No, I do not mean that I was eaten alive by a grizzly bear. The way I went was much, much worse.
I was fifteen years old when I died of a broken heart. No urban myths or legends here. I’m talking one hundred percent Death by Heartbreak. No, I didn’t kill myself. No, I didn’t go on a hunger strike. I didn’t catch pneumonia wandering around in the rain in tears, Sense and Sensibility–style, even though I’m kind of obsessed with Kate Winslet. Nope, I did it the old-fashioned way. My heart literally BROKE IN HALF.
I know, right? I didn’t think a person could actually die from that either. But I’m living (well, not living, per se) proof. Even if most people still blame my sudden death on the heart murmur I’ve had since I was born. Even if it wasn’t a big deal growing up, and I was always perfectly healthy and never had to take medicine or not play sports or anything like that. Actually, it was the total opposite.
I was strong. Energetic. Kind of a tomboy. I was even picked for my high school’s varsity diving team when I was still in seventh grade.
Not that it mattered.
In the end, my heart broke anyway.
I’m talking epic. Life changing. The “can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do your homework, can’t stop giggling, can’t remember anything but his smile” kind of hold. Like, Wesley and Buttercup proportions. Harry and Sally. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The kind of hold in all your favorite ’80s songs, like the “Must Have Been Love”s, the “Take My Breath Away”s, the “Eternal Flame”s—the ones you sing into a hairbrush-microphone at the top of your lungs with your best friends on a Saturday night.
The very same hold you read about in your big sister’s diary when she’s out with her boyfriend, and you hope and pray and beg that it’ll happen to you, but then it does and you go completely and totally insane and lose your entire grip on reality or any sense of how things used to be before he walked into your life and ruined everything.
Love’s super-sneaky like that. It creeps up the second you turn your head to check how cute your butt looks in that new pair of jeans. The minute you’re distracted by the SATs, or who kissed who at your best friend’s Sweet Sixteen, or the fact that you didn’t get the lead in Into the Woods (I hate you, Maggie Elliot), and now you have to play Cinderella, when everyone knows it isn’t as good a part as the witch.
Until suddenly you wake up one morning and realize The Truth: that some boy—a boy you’ve known your whole life who you never even dreamed would be actual boyfriend-material; a boy you never even thought was that cute; a boy who’s kind of a dork and always wears that same skateboard T-shirt; a boy who is obsessed with The Lord of the Rings and the dragon tattoo he’s going to get on his leg when he turns eighteen—is suddenly All You Can Think About.
The problem is, there is absolutely nothing “fun” about falling in love. Nope. Mostly it just makes you feel sick and crazy and anxious and nervous that it’s going to end miserably and ruin your whole life. And guess what: Then it does.
Okay, yes, he smells amazing. And yes, you melt whenever he texts you to say good night, and yes, his eyes are soooo blue. And yes, he holds your hand on the way to geometry and he gets your weird little secrets and he makes you laugh so hard you snort your Mountain Dew in front of him but you don’t care even though it’s the most embarrassing thing ever. And yes, when he kisses you, the rest of the world disappears and your brain shuts off and all you can feel are his lips and nothing else matters.
And yes, he tells you that you’re beautiful, and suddenly, you are.
News flash: The whole thing is a huge mess and a giant nightmare and it’s all about to explode in your face and you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. Love is no game. People cut their ears off over this stuff. People jump off the Eiffel Tower and sell all their possessions and move to Alaska to live with the grizzly bears, and then they get eaten and nobody hears them when they scream for help. That’s right. Falling in love is pretty much the same thing as being eaten alive by a grizzly bear.
Believe me, I should know.
Because, did I mention? It happened to me. No, I do not mean that I was eaten alive by a grizzly bear. The way I went was much, much worse.
I was fifteen years old when I died of a broken heart. No urban myths or legends here. I’m talking one hundred percent Death by Heartbreak. No, I didn’t kill myself. No, I didn’t go on a hunger strike. I didn’t catch pneumonia wandering around in the rain in tears, Sense and Sensibility–style, even though I’m kind of obsessed with Kate Winslet. Nope, I did it the old-fashioned way. My heart literally BROKE IN HALF.
I know, right? I didn’t think a person could actually die from that either. But I’m living (well, not living, per se) proof. Even if most people still blame my sudden death on the heart murmur I’ve had since I was born. Even if it wasn’t a big deal growing up, and I was always perfectly healthy and never had to take medicine or not play sports or anything like that. Actually, it was the total opposite.
I was strong. Energetic. Kind of a tomboy. I was even picked for my high school’s varsity diving team when I was still in seventh grade.
Not that it mattered.
In the end, my heart broke anyway.
I highly recommend this book. 
Download Link: https://www.sendspace.com/file/3b0o4f
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