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To the fractured and broken: You are worth fixing.
“You’re the sun, Melody March. The sun only knows how to shine.”
I smile for added effect, and because it’s something I’ve always been good at—even when it’s not entirely genuine.
“The right words are easy when they come from an unselfish place. Don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t have your best interest in mind,
It’s a slow, soul-sucking process, where you’re stuck in this limbo between fading away for good and making a comeback, but you can’t quite obtain either. So, you just wilt.
I hope you found some sunlight and have been watered properly.
And when my own light dimmed and my smile waned, it only intensified my increasing feelings of despair. My grief was turning me into something I loathed. I was that negative person. I was the thing people like me avoided.
“Maybe cutting is my therapy,”
To lose is to have loved. It’s when we have nothing left to lose that we truly know suffering.
“All broken things can be fixed. The hard part is deciding that they’re worth fixing.”
this heart is a burden. It’s a fraud. Most days I resent it and wish it had been given to a better man. A worthier man. And I know that sounds shitty because your husband is gone, and here I am complaining about my healthy, beating heart. Doesn’t seem fair. But it’s the truth, and I won’t ever lie to you.
her eyes even sort of twinkle as I study her from one seat over. Wait… twinkle? No. Fuck, no. I don’t notice shit like eye twinkles. I don’t even fucking remember my own eye color half the time.
“You said I look at you like I’m trying to fix you,” she says softly, her eyes scanning my face, searching for a crack. A hole. A way in. “You look at me like you’re trying to break me.”
When you build your entire life around another person and that person just disappears… what’s left?”
“I got the impression you hated everyone.” His eyes flick over me like jade flames, drinking me in from toes to top as his jaw clenches, the tendons in his neck straining when he makes his way back up to my face. “Not you.”
My panic seems to ebb the moment she’s in my arms—the moment I give in and hold her back. She’s chipping away at my brick walls, and her sunny rays of light are seeping through the cracks, trying to bring me warmth.
I can picture her flushed cheeks, wild hair, and wide green eyes, like two emerald arrows to my chest. All I want to do is pull them out, but they’re embedded, lodged too deep, and it’ll only make it worse. I’ll bleed out.
“I’m exploding with anticipation.” “I can tell. You look like you might do something extreme—like smile.”
How can you ever obtain completion again when you’re missing the biggest piece?”
All this time, I’ve been wrong about her. She’s not sunshine. She’s glittering nightfall, pale moonlight, silver stars in midnight skies. She’s that beacon of light when darkness threatens and consumes. No, she’s not the sun… Melody is the moon.
“So, believe me when I say you’re more than just an itch. You’re a fucking revolution.”
The instant we find each other, everything else seems to disappear. The lights dim, and the voices fade. It’s just us.
He has the emotional capacity of a spatula.”
I just wanted an excuse to touch you.”
All I wanted to do was knock his teeth out, drag her the fuck out of that place, then scrub her clean of that asshole.
“I remember every goddamn inch of you, Melody, and you sure as hell didn’t feel like his girl.” You felt like mine.
“That’s what gets a smile out of you? Manhandling me?” My smile grows wider despite myself,
Scars mean you survived something terrible. There’s nothing ugly about that.”
“No, Parker. Once she sees your scars, she’ll love you even more.”
“If you knew all the things I wanted to do to you right now, I don’t think you’d be calling me sweet.”
I feel myself melting, liquefying in her hands, my brittle outer layers flaking and splintering.
I let out a choppy sigh, instinctively holding her closer, losing myself in her warmth, in her citrus scent. She’s the only beam of light in this dark room—my only escape. She’s my moon.
Maybe she is hope, with hair made of cotton, eyes like the sea, and a mouth I haven’t stopped thinking about since she gifted me with that very first smile.
“I’m falling for you,” I breathe against her lips, almost grazing them. “But I don’t know how to fall without crashing and burning.”
“This mouth has captivated me since the first day you smiled in my direction, all sweetness and sunbeams. It fucking pissed me off.”
“You taste exactly like your smile.” Melody’s chest heaves as she drags her nails down my jaw, then my neck. “What does it taste like?” “Mine.”
Just wanted to say that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Goodnight.
“We are not responsible for the choices that others make. It’s human condition to latch onto the whys and what ifs because that gives us power when we feel like we have none. But we’re looking for power in the wrong place,” she explains. “The power is not in the past—it’s in the present. It’s in how we choose to move forward, and how we can mold our grief into something useful. Something beautiful.”
“You’re mine,” I grit out, my heart thundering, my soul alight. “You’re what I’ve been waiting for. You’re what I’ve been searching for my whole life, and I didn’t even know it.” Her gasp only makes me hold her tighter, and I swear I see tears glinting back at me, ready to fall. “Melody… you’re my starting point. You’re my turning point.” Pulling her forehead against mine, a strangled sound escapes her, and I finish with conviction, “You’re the whole damn point.”
“You’re the guiding light in a dark sky,” Parker murmurs, his breath tickling the top of my head. “You shine strong when the rest of the world is asleep… when no one is even looking.”
I would’ve been really damn okay if I just stopped waking up in the morning. It’s a shitty, black hole type of feeling, and I’m not sure there’s anything anyone can say to help you see through to the other side.
But only you can decide that your life is worth living. Only you can see the other side.”
