I learned that every choice has an outcome and I learned that holding on to bitterness is a poison that eats away at you from the inside.
I turned her around to face me and brought my hands up, Someday, I said, 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. And that is going to be the great joy of my life, Bree Prescott.
Real joy, the kind that permeates your life and brings contentment to your soul comes from service. So no, happiness is not the word. Purpose. Contentment. Joy. To find those things, don’t seek happiness. Search instead for those who need your gift and give it away.
In life, there are those who save us, both in big ways and in small.
We must never choose safety over right. Safety is the blanket under which cowards sleep. Safety smothers hope and extinguishes all fight.
I watched with wonder, as she came undone, this woman who had resisted me so stridently, challenged me at every turn, this woman who fascinated me, tested me, pushed me to my limits, and kept me guessing. She was everything to me: my dreams, my weakness, and the person who made me want to be strong. She was the one woman who showed me I mattered, that I was wanted. That I was enough.
The gods created this place for us,” I whispered, smiling dreamily. Calder paused, brushing his lips once more across my throat before responding. “Yes.” I felt him smile against my skin. “Why do you think they did that?” “So we’d have a place to fall in love.
If you let it, pain makes more space for love within you. And the love we carry inside makes us strong when nothing else can.
Everyone deserves a love story that doesn’t hurt.
I love you,” he repeated. “In this lifetime and in any that follow. I will always love you, Audra.
You’ve always been so sure about me. Thank you for that gift.
You were given this pain because you’re strong enough to endure it.
I’d give her rainbows every day if I could only see the smile she’d given me this morning, see that wonder glowing in her eyes for longer than a minute.
I’m going to take it slow this time. We’re going to burn every stroke, every touch, and every kiss into our skin so when we’re back together, it will only then just be cooling. While we’re apart, we’ll still be keeping each other warm.
Because I missed you. Because I didn’t have anyone else to talk to, and so I kept talking to you, even though you never answered.
I think, Calder, that we have to figure out how to forgive, not for the people who wronged us, but for us.
But life, I supposed, didn’t always offer closure.
It’s not even natural how much I want you.
I love you,” she said, nuzzling him back. “All of you. Maybe the wolf most of all, because he was the one who ensured you lived so you could love me when I arrived.
Did you know the trees speak to each other?” She wrinkled her brow. “No.” “They do. They tell secrets in their roots, those deep, dark places that can’t be seen. I think we’re like that too. 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?” Her heart beat with love for him, at the sweetness of what he’d said. She nodded. “Yes, I heard.