More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“You’re being awful pleasant.” “You’re mad that I’m not being a dick to you?” “A bit.” “You’re certifiable. I’m trying to be civil. Can you be civil?” “I can be perfectly fucking civil.” “So can I.” “Well, awful good, then.”
I’m going to commit a murder at a charity 5k family fun run. That is not how I thought I’d ruin my life. But I’m good with it.
Im deadddd
I work my hand under his and twine our fingers together.
screAMINGGGG
“You’re all I’ve been able to think about for weeks. The only thought in my head is what your face will look like when I take you apart—like this, like this right now, you’re perfect.”
I know that his kiss tasted like all the dreams I waxed on about in the writing I don’t do anymore, the words I wove while trying to imagine Iris but all I imagined was a fantasy, an ending. He tasted like those fantasies. He felt like those endings. It’s him.
“In all that writing you used to do about happily ever after,” Coal continues, “did you ever think what being happy would actually feel like?”
I altered my whole being into shapes that fit voids in everyone else’s lives so they’d stay, so my life would look perfect, so I wouldn’t be alone again. But I never asked myself what shape I wanted to take.
“You aren’t an awakening,” I whisper. “You’re the whole dawn. And I can’t believe I ever thought I’d seen the sun before you.”
“I don’t know what your problem is—maybe you don’t deserve me, which is insane; but I sure as hell don’t deserve you, either. So be unworthy with me, in this moment, right now. We’re here. We have all day. I showed you part of my soul and we’re next to a bed. So kiss me, you idiot, and be with me.”
I want to know what it’s like to kiss this man at every stage of his life. Word by word. It’s too big to think of anything else. But I want his forever. I want it and I love him and I’m a goddamn moron.
“If I had to choose again,” Hex cuts me off, “no matter the repercussions, no matter the situation, no matter what was at risk for Halloween, I’d choose Coal. I’d choose my own happiness.”
“My Holiday survived before me. It will survive after me. But I know now that I will not survive without him. So I’d choose him, and myself. Even if it makes no sense. Even if it hurts.”
“You’re worth staying for, Kristopher. You. Not what you have to offer people. You are worth it.”
My lips part. “I—” He grabs the collar of my jacket and kisses me. And it’s so much better than anything I could have said.
Iris told me I deserve this sort of ending. Right now, I finally believe I do.
That’s the real happy ending I always wrote about—no big, sweeping orchestral situations, no constant churn of drama and emotion.
Just him, over and over, unfolding into a meandering, uncertain path that ripples far off into the distance. A happy ever after that we make together.
