Not in Love (Not in Love, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

“Then I did. Figured that if you were still here, maybe it was fate.” “You don’t believe in fate.” “Never have. You?” “I think it’s all bullshit.”

he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything this lovely in all his years on this damn planet.

Her mouth curled upward, as though she enjoyed the compliment, and he wanted to give her a million more. Scribble them in the fucking burning Library of Alexandria.

“You’re staring.” “Yeah.” He smiled. He was going to look at her until he died or until his eyes wore off, whichever came first.

And Eli was still looking at me like I contained the entire universe.

Rue laughed again, and had he ever yielded more power than right at this moment? Had anything felt better than making her smile when she’d been crying only moments ago? It was fucking intoxicating. Screw science or finance—this could be his craft.

I remained still in the bluish quiet of the night, pretending to be a photograph of myself, emptying my mind of everything but the faint scent of petrichor seeping in through a window.

“Do you think that maybe there’s another version of us, somewhere in another timeline? Where we’re not just a messed-up lump of scar tissue, and we’re whole enough to be capable of loving others the way they want to be loved?” He stared at me for an endless moment, and a silly thought nestled into my mind. If I were able to love someone, I would choose you. In that timeline, I would want it to be you.

I thought I’d be rid of you by now. I thought I’d sweat you out. But it’s like you’ve stolen a little piece of me. And I’m afraid that when this is over, I’ll go back to my life, and my shape will have changed—just a little, but enough that I’ll no longer fit into my lonely, angular hole.

And then, Rue, I met you. And you casually cracked my life into before and after you.” His lips curved. For a moment he looked genuinely happy. “Out of all the people I’ve met, the things I’ve wanted, the places I’ve been, none has ever felt as necessary as you do. Because I love you. I love you in a way I didn’t think I was capable of. I love you because you showed me how to fall in love. And I don’t regret it, Rue. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Maybe people can be happy and sad. Maybe stories are messy and complicated. Maybe endings don’t always include solutions that tie everything together in a bow. But that doesn’t mean that they have to be tragedies.”

She still had the power to destroy him. Always would, he suspected, hold him in the palm of her hand. He hoped she’d be merciful.

his complicated, mercurial dream girl.

So, no, I hadn’t changed. But my life sparked a little brighter—and that was that.