Magnolia Parks: The Long Way Home (The Magnolia Parks Universe, #3)

by Jessa Hastings

That pull we have, the undertow of the universe always dragging us back towards each other, it has to mean something, don’t you think?

He laughs and for some reason it sounds like I’m ringing the doorbell of the home I grew up in.

Loving her like this is a kind of breathing that feels like dying.

“BJ, you can love someone and not have it rule you, not have it dictate your every waking thought and decision. You can love someone and still retain your power and autonomy. You can love someone and have it just be there, a part of you, and still have a completely functional life—” She pauses and gives me a long look. “Even if it’s a life without them.”

semi-proud of myself for not allowing my present circumstances to inhibit my ability for a zingy one-liner.

Funny with pain, how it propagates itself, grows into you, becomes a part of you. Shapes you a bit.

Wonder how to unlove him. If I even could. I’ll wear it like a badge of honour forever that he loved me first, that he loved me at all. Have you ever had a love like that? I always felt like the luckiest girl to have his eyes on me, his hands on me.

I could drown in the what ifs if I let myself—might as well. I’ll be drowning in her anyway for the rest of my life. Happily, too. What a way to go. What a life.

Love him.” Christian gives me a curt smile. “You’ve loved him since you were fourteen,” he tells me. “Magnolia, you never stopped.”

Never again would a day go by where I didn’t think of her, where she wasn’t my very waking thought. Maybe that’s unhealthy, maybe that’s fucked up, or maybe I just love her how someone like her deserves to be loved. I don’t know.

Poisons you a bit, makes you believe the words they’re saying are true. Words are so powerful.

“You’ve kind of always had weird rules you live by, and if you don’t follow them you get weird and antsy.”

“Because I can’t put the thought down.”

“That kind of thinking, Magnolia—it fucks people up. It’s all wrapped up in his self-worth now. Do good to get good. He did shit and he’s scared he’s gonna get shit. He can’t help it. But people are people, and people hurt people—” He shrugs again. “It’s just the nature of being human. We fuck up.”

and I love him more than I love me, so I want him to be happy more than I want me to be happy.