I walked toward him, single-minded, and when we reached each other, despite the bandages under his shirt, he swept me up in his arms and swung me around as he laughed silently against my lips, those golden-brown eyes filled with warmth, with love. And I thought to myself, Archer Hale’s voice was one of the most beautiful things in the whole wide world.
Do you know the quality all lions possess, above all else?” “No.” I shake my head. “Loyalty,” he says, smiling and showing me that adorable gap in his teeth. No matter how far apart we are. No matter the distance or time, I will never love anyone except you. Not ever.
Acadia “Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” Homer, The Iliad.
There’s always going to be the chance that that I could lose you in this lifetime. There’s nothing any of us can do about the possibility of loss. But in that moment, I decided I was more interested in focusing on the great privilege I’ve been given in having you at all.
I couldn’t have known that Archer Hale existed somewhere in this crazy, crowded world, and that he had been made just for me.
Someday, when we’re old and gray, I’m going to look at you lying in bed beside me, just like this, and i’m going to look into your eyes and know that it’s only ever been you.
We had talked about taking a bus to Cincinnati on your eighteenth birthday. It was the only connection any of the three of us had to anywhere and we knew we needed to leave town. He probably didn’t even have time to tell you that plan.
The thing about Maya was it was like that extra chromosome was filled to bursting with love. So filled up, it wa constantly leaking out of her in some shouty way, and she just couldn’t keep it insinde her. It hat to come out in some way, shape or form.
Deserve it? Do any of us deserve what we get in this life? Is that how it works?
I don’t think you can judge every man by one or two who let you down.
And once they know you love them, they all walk away.
There was absolutely no getting turned on by porn stars purposefully trying to shock and intimidate for no apparent reason.
Something sparked in the air, something Clara was surprised didn’t illuminate the darkness, something that felt bright and shimmery and she swore was raining upon her skin like the fallout of a broken star.
It surprised her that she was so pleased by his compliment when she’d never been a girl who cared overly much about her appearance, instead choosing to focus on her talents, her skills, the things she was in control of. But she was still a girl, and to hear that this man, whose opinion she’d come to care about, thought she was beautiful brought her joy.
Weren’t all of us a compilation of the versions of ourselves we’d once been? Maybe if we were lucky – and insightful – we learned how to extract the good, and leave the bad behind, the parts that hadn’t worked for us, and instead brought nothing but pain. Maybe.
For a couple hours, I was a kid, doing something simple that I had never done when I was actually a kid. For a short time, I lost myself in doing something for no other reason than that it was fun.
We know things deep, deep down, secret things, ancient things, that whisper through us, one to the other. You whispered to me. And I whispered back. You heard, didn’t you?
You’re coming up to the main house and that’s final. I’m laying down the law. I know somewhere in there you’re arguing with me, but I’m not taking no for an answer. You have no choice but to obey me. How do you like that, wife?
We had each reacted differently in a moment of terror, and yet we both still hurt. Maybe there was no right or wrong, no black or white, only a thousand shades of grey when it came to pain and what we each held ourselves responsible for.
She learned the same lesson I had learned though – if someone is hell-bent on self-destruction, there isn’t a lot you can do to change their mind.