Meredith Russo

“You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.”

“this is wonderful. I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah,” Grant said. I realized he was staring at me. “You make me feel that way a lot.”

As I spoke I thought back to what Virginia had said weeks before, about getting anything you wanted if you let yourself believe you deserved it. For as long as I could remember, I had been apologizing for existing, for trying to be who I was, to live the life I was meant to lead. Maybe this would be the last conversation I would ever have with Grant. Maybe not. Either way, I realized, I wasn’t sorry I existed anymore. I deserved to live. I deserved to find love. I knew now—I believed, now—that I deserved to be loved.