Reached (Matched, #3)

by Ally Condie

I want so much: happiness, freedom, love. And I want a few other tangible things, too.

I could write stories; I could hide from the world and make my own instead of trying to change it or live in it. I could write paper people and I would love them too; I could make them almost real.

If you let hope inside, it takes you over. It feeds on your insides and uses your bones to climb and grow. Eventually it becomes the thing that is your bones, that holds you together. Holds you up until you don’t know how to live without it anymore. To pull it out of you would kill you entirely.

It’s all right that I can’t figure everything out right here, right now.

When we fall in love the first time, we don’t know anything. We risk a lot less than we do if we choose to love again. There is something extraordinary about the first time falling. But it feels even better to find myself standing on solid ground, with someone holding on to me, pulling me back, and know that I’m doing the same for her.