Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)

by Kennedy Ryan

“A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny.” —Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, philanthropist, activist

I’m only now realizing that often when people say “it’s funny,” they really mean that it’s… sad. A sad reversal of fortune. To have always been the parent. And now to be…

One of the hardest parts of aging is being the one “still standing” when everyone else has found their peace lying down.

Look at God. He may not come when you want Him, but He always comes on time.

We so rarely truly see people in their hurt. It’s even rarer not to flinch—not to look away from another’s pain.

my twenties, I was just running. Always in the streets and for what? In my thirties, I started asking big questions and looking for answers. Now I know exactly who I am and what I want. And I can finally afford myself.”

“We are not magic,” she says. “We are resilient. It’s not a wand. It’s work. We work harder and shine brighter to survive. Excellence for us has been a matter of necessity. In a climate where less than half a percent of venture capital funding goes to Black women, women founders still perform sixty-three percent better than all-male founding teams in the first round. With those odds, we can’t leave our success to chance and we for sure can’t depend on magic.”

There are women like me who are mothering in our own ways, but have never carried a child or been a parent. We’re teachers and mentors and social workers and godmothers. We find ways to pour love into the world, to shape the world for good without bearing a child. It’s not about our wombs. It’s about

our hearts and how we share them. That is bodily agency—me getting to decide what I do with my body in this life.”

Seeing my friends makes me realize that I do want that someday with the right person. Maybe I have wanted it for a while and not acknowledged it because I know I’m not settling for no trash man. And let’s face it, most men are trash. I don’t feel like getting on an app or meeting someone new, or figuring out if I’m being catfished. I’m too old to be bothered with that shit, so maybe I hid from myself that I want someone to touch me, to look at me like that. Someday.

I’m usually fine being the glamorous third wheel who needs nothing and nobody beyond my girls. But tonight that ache spreads over the surface of my heart like an ink stain, and I want… more. Something else. The world isn’t designed for women like me. Women who’d rather be single literally for years than settle for a partner not worthy of her. A woman who doesn’t want to be a mother, and assumes the rich auntie role with panache, but occasionally feels left out on game night.

“And then we went to the Waffle House.” “Interesting choice for a man who could buy out Waffle House,” Soledad says. “But continue.”

There are parts of you that want to be held, want to be needed and loved. That is just as emotionally valid as the parts of you that crave independence.

You won’t find a man more ambitious than me, but I’ve learned that it’s never enough,”

conviction. “You can’t earn enough. You can’t achieve enough. Ambition for things and accolades is a bottomless pit. It’s all you can eat, but you never get full.”

“My life won’t be measured just in what I did, but who I did it with. Who I chose to be in friendship with. In relationship with. I think that’s where real contentment is found, and I think I could find it with you.”

“Is that what you want, Hen? Am I what you want? Because I want you and the only thing that will stop me from having you… is you. Not Zere or anyone else.”

“That’s everything because that means I’m good to you and you’re good to me. Being good to you means wanting what’s best for you. If there is

upper hand, baby, I don’t want it. I know I’m asking you to take a big risk, but all I can do is promise that I’ll never try to hurt you and I’ll do everything to protect you. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t regret choosing me and I’ll protect your dreams as fiercely as I chase my own.”

“I’ve been wary of commitment because I’ve always seen women put their partners’ desires and goals before their own.” I shrug. “I even saw it with my own parents in some ways. I saw it with friends from college who had ambitions, but lost sight of that when they married. They compromised once they had a husband and a family.”

“I don’t want to hear about the effect you have on anyone but me.”

“You love me.”

“Damn right I love you.”

I hear the words to the song now. They’re love and trust and right now and forever and

always and enough.

Telling her this is one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. Loving someone this way feels like giving them a blank check and telling them they can fill it up with zeros. That there is no limit, but that’s how I feel when I’m with Hendrix.

They have been with me through the toughest times of my life. They have never wavered and have taught me what true friendship, what real sisterhood means. I thank you.”

want my love to be the most extravagant gift I ever give you,” he whispers, his voice deep and reverent. “I want it to be outrageously unconditional. I want it to overflow and spill into every crevice of your life, every corner of your heart because that’s what you do for me. You overwhelm me, Hendrix.”