Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffin Archive

"'It's true,' he says. 'Ellen . . . I don't know how I let you get away . . . ' I give him a small smile, feeling very bashful as I marvel how such a simple statement can be so healing and thrilling and unsettling, all at once." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"If you never contact someone even once after your final breakup, isn't it, by definition, clean?" - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"What I had yet to learn, though, is that things are seldom as neat and tidy as that starry-eyed anecdote you share documentary-style on a couch. What I figured out over time is that almost always, when you hear those stories from married couples, there is a little poetic license going on, a romantic spin, polished to a high shine over time. And unless you marry your high school sweetheart (and even sometimes then), there is usually a not-so-glorious back story. There are people and places and events that lead you to your final relationship, people and places and events you'd prefer to forget or at least gloss over. In the end, you can slap a pretty label on it--like serendipity or fate. Or you can believe that it's just the random way life unfolds. But no matter what you call it, it seems that every couple has two stories--the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version, best left alone." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"Andy loved me, and I'm not ashamed to say that this topped my reasons of why we were together, of why I loved him back." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"There is nothing hopeful in this moment. This is not a beginning, but an end. It is almost time to let go of Leo's hand. It is almost time to say goodbye." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I was optimistic, content, self-sufficient, and as settled as you can really be when you're young, single, and living in a big city." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I mostly saw Leo for what he was--a past love who was never coming back, and I saw myself as a wiser, more complete woman for having lost him. In other words, I was ripe for a new relationship, a better man." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I can no longer neatly categorize what he was during our time together. He was not the man of my dreams, the perfect guy I once put on a pedestal; nor was he the villain who Margot had done her best to demonize; nor really any guy on that particular continuum. He was just the wrong guy for me at the time. Nothing more, nothing less." - Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

"I hope he goes on to surmise that our breakup was a catalyst in my life--a springboard for bigger and better things." - 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