Tales of the Celestial Kingdom (The Celestial Kingdom, #2.5)

by Sue Lynn Tan

Eternity only meant something when you had someone to share it with, not when it would take you from all you loved.

I wanted to say more, to lift her face to mine—to ask for her heart, as I was in danger of losing mine.

Life was not perfect; there were always hidden wounds, pain disguised beneath a smile, a price to any happiness possessed. We had to bear our burdens the best we could, for we alone knew their true weight.

I sensed nothing at first, when she came. But she returned again and again, weeping as she spoke to me, until one day . . . I woke from oblivion. She needs me. As I need her.

“The past is embedded in who we are, whether we choose to change or keep our course. Without our history, we are unmarked sheets of paper.”

“Even those are bound to the past, for they cannot be new without the old. Whatever the past, it should not be ignored—but acknowledged, embraced, accepted. Only once we understand who we were, and what we are now, can we claim our future.”

“My dreams have changed since we met,” I said bluntly. “Now, I want to spend each day as tonight.”

“Do you wish you could change anything about your past?”

“I do not believe in another fixing our destinies. I believe we make our own, and some of us might even defy that which is written in the stars.” “I would move the stars for you,” I said quietly, as something shifted into place inside me. “I would defy them all.”