The Best of Me

by Nicholas Sparks

Instead of answering, he reached for his knife. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that if you don’t want to know the answer to a question, don’t ask?”

Always had been and always would be and that was just the way it was, so why bother complaining? You either did something about it or you didn’t, and then you lived with the choice you made.

but she was a woman and the rules were simple: You wanted something from them, you got it,

“That’s why I loved being with you. We could do the simplest things, like toss starfish into the ocean and share a burger and talk and even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn’t constantly trying to impress me.

Love, after all, always said more about those who felt it than it did about the ones they loved.

But now it’s time for me to join her. It’s time for us to sing together. It’s my time and I have no regrets. I’m back with Clara again, and that’s the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.

And it hurt him, and I knew it hurt him, but the harder he tried to show me how important I was to him, the more suffocated I felt.

When they finally drew back, she heard the faint sound of a cell phone as it began to ring. Her phone, reminding her of the life she still had elsewhere.

But like I said, she’s hurting, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people in pain don’t always see things as clearly as they should.

We’re still young, he’d told her. We still have time to make this right.

“And money can’t buy forgiveness.”

but I never, ever believed there was anything malicious about your actions that night. It was just one of those awful, terrible things that happen sometimes, and when you came by, I took it out on you.”