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All Played Out Cora Carmack 17250K 2023-09-02

"I’ame"

"Don’t be Football isn’t as coet it in no time"

I shakeTorres"

She coughs and thu "You were? Seriously? How did I ame Usually, I’m the first person to know that kind of stuff"

"Well, there’s not ht, and it’s over Really, it was doomed before it ever started becausewell, it just was"

Because me and emotions don’t mix

Because I was just a stand-in

Because we’re too different Way, way, too different

She says, "I know a thing or two about being doolances over her shoulder, al to make sure her friends are still busy in conversation Satisfied, she turns back to me and says, "It’s likeyou have plans, ideas for how so to unfold And you’re patient, you don’t try to rush things because you know they’ll happen when they’re supposed to happen But then what happens is soether different And it doesn’t just affect your old plans, it obliterates the stupid that you ever even considered those old options, that you ever got your hopes up"

Stella and I are both short, roughly the saht, actually, but she seems so small next to me My first instinct is to attribute that sense to her e any Her hands don’t shake as she continues eating Her expression is neither wrought with feeling nor purposely blank Her eyelashes are long, but she’s not blinking like she’s fighting off tears She see

And I kno that feels I spent all that ti whether I was capable of a relationship Whether I had it in ot in the way

I never would have done that in an experio unconsidered

"I don’t think you were stupid," I tell Stella She stiffens beside"I don’t really buy into that word There are only wrong answers and right ones Stupidity and intelligence, those are attributes we add toa stupid decision doesn’ta smart decision doesn’t necessarily make someone smart Our bad choices don’tNot about everything"

"I want to believe that That one choice, one thing, doesn’t define you But everything is just like fucking do, one after the other, and I can never get ahead of it So as much as I want to believe what you say, I can’t"