The Last Letter

by Rebecca Yarros

Dear Chaos, At least that’s what my brother says they call you.

First sentence.

“Someone once told me that swearing is a poor excuse for a crap vocabulary. It makes you look low class and uneducated.

“Sometimes you have to leave so you can know what it is you left. You don’t really value something until you’ve lost it.”

“Don’t let go,” she whispered. Her hands were still between us, but she wasn’t pushing me away, they were simply resting on my pecs. If anything, she leaned in. “I’d forgotten what this felt like.” “Being hugged?” My voice was sandpaper-rough. “Being held together.”

As you get bigger, you’ll see that it’s not how you handle the wins that make you a good man, it’s how you handle the losses.”

We are imperfect people made that way by an imperfect world, and we don’t always get a say in what shapes us.