RealClever
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Summary
Aster Flores’s first semester of college in Portland is spent two ways: yearning, and figuring herself out.
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She clicks the silver button of her yellow pen and sets it on the paper to paper to write. As she starts, the pen glides over the paper with ease, like it’s whole creation was meant to write this letter.
Dear Ellie,
Bookmarked by RealClever
23 Jun 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Who needs to beat around the bush anymore? I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since that first letter where you knocked off that quote from the French movie.
I hope you don’t mind if I steal some words too.
Pablo Neruda once wrote, “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
And I finally get it. That feeling of whiplash, of connectedness. That feeling you get when the last puzzle piece fits perfectly into the frame.
That feeling of finally achieving the bold stroke.
I love you, Ellie Chu. And if you find yourself in Squahamish this summer, I want you to know I’ll be waiting for you, at our spot, with my radio and some godforsaken taco sausages.
You’re my bold stroke, Ellie. You’re the focal point of the whole painting.
And when you get this, if you ever bother reading it, I just want you to know that falling in love with you was the scariest thing I have ever done. And I’m so grateful for that.
With all my love,
Aster.
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"Do you really want to go to college without at least knowing what touching another person is like?"
Bookmarked by RealClever
23 Jun 2026
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never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary by circulareasoning
Fandoms: The Half of It (2020)
02 May 2020
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They’re out in nature right now, “cell service doesn’t work out here,” Aster had said with a teasing smile, like she’d deliberately taken them away from Squahamish so they can be alone, away from friends and family and other prying eyes, like they can be in their own little world, half-naked in a hot spring—
Wait, what.
The hot spring scene, but different. (And by different, I mean gayer.)
Bookmarked by RealClever
22 Jun 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Church is where Ellie sees Aster for the first time, her soothing voice reading out passages, her pretty face just visible over the pulpit. She’s the pastor’s daughter, which is not the reason why Ellie falls in love with her, because she’s a stereotype in many ways but not in the weird heathen, forbidden nun-wanting way, but it’s certainly one of the reasons why Ellie knows Aster will never return her feelings.
Ellie falls in love one day on the school track, waiting by the bleachers for one of her buyers to meet her to make an exchange. Aster is sitting on one of the middle benches, wind ruffling her hair while she reads a book, The Remains of the Day. She looks up, and she must spot Ellie because she smiles and waves, and Ellie doesn’t believe in God, but Aster’s face was glowing, halo atop her head and white wings spread behind her.
Not an angel; those don’t exist. Aster. Her star.
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“She’s back, you know, for the summer. She’ll probably be there.”
He doesn’t say who, but he doesn’t need to.
Ellie thinks back to the last time she’d seen Aster Flores. How she’d held her face in her hands; pressed her lips to hers; made a promise she might now be too scared to keep.
Bookmarked by RealClever
22 Jun 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Somewhere, the back of her mind registers that her white shirt is almost see-through now, clinging to wet skin. Aster seems to notice this too, as her gaze drops low, then moves slowly, deliberately, back up. Brown eyes so piercing that it makes Ellie feel compelled to spill all her secrets.
So, she does.
“I think… I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. And I don’t mean just your looks, though it should be illegal to be this pretty.” Once Ellie starts talking, it’s as if a dam has broken. “Honestly, I would listen to you talk about Sartre, Camus, Arendt or Socrates all day. I could live in an ocean of your thoughts. Sometimes, when I’m reading a book, I come across a particular sentence or idea, and my first instinct is that I want to send it to you because I want to know what you think about it.”
Aster blinks, but Ellie is on a roll now.
“I love seeing the art that you create. I love how your eyes look right into mine, like right now. I love the way your laugh busts out like you can’t help yourself, the way you move your hands a lot when you’re nervous, little moments that remind me you’re not perfect. All those times we were in that choir room, every time you sang, you made me want to believe in God, or at least, angels.”
Ellie reaches the end of her speech when it feels like all the air has been knocked out of her lungs, and in its place, regret comes rushing in. Aster is still staring at her, slightly slack-jawed.
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get myself together, spend you all of my money by amillionsmiles
Fandoms: The Half of It (2020)
12 May 2020
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Summary
“You’d think going to college out of town would have knocked us both down a peg, but instead we ended up pretty pretentious.”
or: Ellie, Aster, and an apartment full of things.