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darling, I swear—it will be the biggest loss of theirs.
Penny is different. Penny used to be a ball of fire, attitude, venom, and a strange allure that made people desperate to be in her line of sight. It’s like looking at a stranger now, and I don’t fucking like that. I saw it in her face. I know I’m right.
You just can’t fight for yourself when it comes to him.” Stop. Talking.
We’re intertwined. We always will be.
threatening surgery could separate us from one another. That sucks when someone is trying to physically detach you from themselves with their bare hands.
We’re sewn together, Sweeten. Every time you yank at the seams, I stitch us back up.
It isn’t the type of friendship that you can fathom severing.
Whoever she is, she’s an idiot.
“I don’t think I love you.” Everything stops.
“I don’t know if I ever really loved you,” he continues.
Ten years. Ten fucking years of my time, and you don’t think you’ve ever loved me? You’ve never been proud to be with me? What in the fuck was the point?
I am walking out of my old cage and straight into a new one.
“You always deserved a bigger love than that. An earth-shattering, life-changing love. That was never it.”
“You know you’re beautiful, right?” he says in a deep, gravelly voice after a long moment of silence. “You’ve always been beautiful. Fuck, even if you were hideous, that heart of yours is the sexiest thing in the world.”
What I would have given to hear that from the mouth of someone who did not deserve to be the object of my longing.
clearly don’t know how to make the right decisions for myself. Why start now?
It's a bad idea...right?
The lips that he’s permanently left his mark on.
as if he’s been in my head for ten years.
Something about this feels like it was inevitable.
I want to let a man worship me and desire me simply because he wants to, not because he has to.
He feels like home.
I breathe in again. Deeper. Warm vanilla, always. Warmth and sweetness and love.
Now, he picked up the sharp little broken bits of my heart that I let him look at and tossed them back at me, piercing my skin and drawing blood.
would step on every fucking landmine if that meant I got to keep her around.
that. If you pull another game like that off, I'll take that ring right off Avery’s finger and give it to you, instead.”
Lmaaoooo
I physically cannot see her with another man. I don’t care if it’s Wyatt, if it’s a stranger, or if it’s Gavin. I can’t. I can’t be this severed from her, wondering how she’s feeling, wondering if she’s okay. I can’t be here with her, without actually being here with her—present, talking to each other. Friends.
It’s an agonizing kind of beauty. It hurts to look at her, but it feels way worse not to see her at all. I’d choose misery for eternity if it meant she would at least smile at me again.
The air is thick with a Declan and Penny storm, and it is about to hit the city.
me. I gave you the power to ruin me and you did.”
Nobody cares about a little fight.” Little? This feels earth shattering.
“You have feelings for him.”
“If there’s one thing I know about Declan, it’s that he always gets what he wants in the end. And you? You are the most difficult person to get to know and the easiest person to love once you do.”
“What I’m saying is, you’re worth the long game, and I think Declan’s been playing that game for a lot longer than even he realizes.”
If you haven’t gathered it yet, I’m a runner. It took me a while to realize that about myself. Apparently, I flee when things get scary. Twenty-year-old me would be so ashamed to see how I turned out.
The bolter
I think I broke her long before then. To be honest, I think me, Gavin, and her own broken heart broke her. It was a recipe for destruction, all of those moving pieces pushing and pulling against each other, but she wouldn’t even let me try and fix it. She wouldn’t acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, she also broke me a bit, too.
But fuck, I’m going through a tough time, too. I am so fucking in love with Penelope Sweeten. Like, pathetically in love with that idiot.
I’d trade it all to heal Wyatt’s heart and his mind, to make him feel better. I’d give up every dollar and every ounce of fame to make him happy. It kills me that he isn’t, that he hasn’t been.
Let me be fucking clear. Right here, right now: there is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing wrong with Wyatt Caulfield and who he’s loved and will love in his lifetime.
heart burns a bit at that. “He looks at you like you are the only person in the world. He’s looked at you that way since the very first time you yelled at him when we were in college.”
“You wouldn’t have lost me.” All the oxygen in the room diminishes when he looks at me like that. “I did lose you.”
“Not for a second. I wouldn’t have let you leave without talking to me, even if you wanted to. I wanted more, P. I wanted you.”
“Thank god,” I groan, still staring at the ceiling. “Because I’m ridiculously in love with you, and that kind of means that I need you to start talking to me again. Preferably on a regular basis.”
It’s us or it’s nothing. Like I said before, she’s not the type of girl you let get away once you have her.
I love you. It’s you and me. It’s a ring, babies if you want ‘em, and tons of dogs that you’ll keep bringing home without asking. It’s WAG jackets and championship rings. It’s you becoming the CEO of a marketing firm. It’s life. Together.”
How deep that symbolism is rooted between them.
But they both said the same thing: vulnerability isn’t a weakness, and my current circumstances are not my old ones.
love you so recklessly that it terrifies me.
I’m so proud of you. Those are words I’ll never tire of. I will strive every day of my life to make her proud. I will root for her to reach her own goals the way she does with mine. I will be her biggest fucking cheerleader until I’m ninety-two and forget my own name. Even then, I’ll look across the senior’s home and see those stormy blue eyes and fall in love all over again. Every day. Even if I don’t remember.
“The only journey more difficult and grueling than the one to this cup was the one to get to you,” he starts, and EJ snorts—loud and knowing. Our friends can’t help their laughter. Nobody else gets the joke, but it’s a good one. “You are worth ten of these. Every bump in the road, every mistake, it was all worth it. Winning you was the biggest victory of my life.”
