From Nowhere (Wildfire, #2)

by Jewel E. Ann

“Everyone uses humor as a coping mechanism because it’s the best medicine. Right?”

Parenting is the art of hypocrisy.

Joy is timeless. It doesn’t matter if someone is five or fifty. It sounds the same, and it’s unavoidably contagious.

When the real possibility of never seeing someone again cuts through the surface of denial, it feels like an out-of-body experience. I felt it with Brynn and my father. It’s as if we’re forced to choose to stay or go.

I haven’t loved Maren for long. My brain knows that. It’s good at math and reason. But my heart doesn’t have filters. It doesn’t do equations. It doesn’t acknowledge the existence of time. The heart is unreasonable and completely illogical. Childlike. Innocent, like Lola.

We’ll figure that out when we get there,” I say with pride because I no longer want to live in fear of the “what if” moments. That’s not living at all.

“I hope you never lose a child. It changes you. Losing a child crushes your heart beyond repair. When the life you brought into this world leaves before you, happiness dies, and the emptiness in your chest fills with anger as you try to make sense of the incomprehensible.”

Sometimes, life feels like nothing more than a repetition of would’ves, could’ves, and should’ves. Instead of dwelling on everything I cannot change, I focus on today.