Not in Love (Not in Love, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

My first impression of him was probably highly similar to others’ first impressions of me—with the caveat that serious, unsmiling men tended to be considered consummate professionals, while serious, unsmiling women were often written off as haughty shrews.

“Rue.” Not What are you doing here? Not Why didn’t you tell me? Not Did you know about this?

“Maybe. Or maybe some people are too broken. Maybe…maybe things have happened in their lives, in their past, that have damaged them so bad, they’re never going to get happy endings with the loves of their lives.”

“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?”

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.”