Variation

by Rebecca Yarros

The second her gaze lifted to lock with mine, I forgot how to fucking breathe, let alone think. I’d never been hit by lightning, but I bet this was what it felt like.

“Follow your heart, and take care of what I’m leaving behind.”

“When you can’t give your husband the only thing he’s ever asked for in an eight-year marriage, he divorces you. Nothing to be sorry about.” “There’s more to life than having kids.” I took a drink. “Not to Finn.” She assaulted the next carrot. “They mean the world to him.” “You deserve someone who thinks you’re the world.”

The only person telling me what I could and couldn’t do was me

“What are you thinking over there, Allie?” He braced his hands on the edge of the counter. “What if I want five minutes?” I walked around the side of the island. “What are we pretending this time?” His knuckles turned white as I approached. “That you want me.” I put myself directly in front of him. His gaze heated. “That’s a very real fact of life. I live in a constant state of wanting you. I have since I was seventeen years old. Wanting you is all I know.”

“Will you just let me hold you for once?” His arms tightened. “You don’t have to handle everything on your own, Allie. You can be scared, and you can love Juniper even if it’s messy. Messy is good, love. Messy is where the best parts of life happen. You don’t have to be in control at all times. It’s okay if you fall apart. I promise I will be right here to put you back together if you just let me.”

“When you don’t give your body time to heal, it will take the time from you.”

“You are the subject of every fantasy I’ve ever had.”

Do you have any idea what you mean to me? You’re my air.

You two are the shit poets write about.”

“I’m in love with him.” She scoffed. “Maybe you can’t comprehend the emotion, but it’s when you would give up everything for that person’s happiness. When their smile is essential to your heartbeat. When you know the gnarled, darkest, ugliest parts of each other, and you don’t turn away.”

“Dreams aren’t stagnant, Allie. They grow. They shift.”

She wasn’t the wave or the pylon; she was the entire ocean, as beautiful as she was impossible to fathom.