The One (The Selection, #3)

by Kiera Cass

Before I could even sip, Maxon slid the bowl of sugar in front of me. Like he knew.

All I could do was move forward and hope that whenever we drifted, we would somehow find a way back to each other.

“We need something to hold your pants up or it’s going to be a very scandalous evening. Well, more so than it already is.”

Celeste had been raised to be a specific kind of pretty. That beauty depended on covering things up, shifting the light, and seeking to be perfect at all times. But there is a different kind of beauty that comes with humility and honesty, and she was glowing with it now.

And there we were, in the background of it all, holding on to one another. The Perfectionist, the Sweetheart, the Diva … and me.

fight, America. You might not want to fight for the things that most others would fight for, like money or notoriety, but fight all the same.

I love you beyond paint, beyond melodies, beyond words. And I hope you will always feel that, even when I’m not around to tell you so.

America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-warm day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion. You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that’s all it would manage to do.

“Break my heart. Break it a thousand times if you like. It was only ever yours to break anyway.” “Shhh,” I urged. “I’ll love you until my very last breath. Every beat of my heart is yours. I don’t want to die without you knowing that.”

A bullet wound and a broken heart would seem like two different injuries. But I could feel myself bleeding out just as surely as Maxon had. No amount of pressure or stitching would ever fix this; nothing would ever stop the ache.

How had I ever thought that I knew what it meant to be loved before this very second?