After Ever Happy (After, #4)

by Anna Todd

Forever. Have I ever wanted anything less with her?

“You’ll learn that women are always mad.” He nods. “Unless they die. Like my mom did.”

Jesus christ

Burning a house down probably isn’t the healthiest way to deal with anger,”

I feel like I’m drowning, and it’s hard to keep myself above water, especially when I’m fighting against the current to save him rather than myself.”

I don’t know if it’s because my mother and father weren’t the best parents, but I have always felt this urge, this need, to be a mother. Not just a mother, but a really good one—a mother that would love her children unconditionally. I would never judge them or belittle them. I would never pressure them or humiliate them. I wouldn’t try to mold them into a better version of myself.”

This is way too common

Does she love me as much as she says, or is she addicted to me? There is a heady difference, and the more shit she puts up with from me, the more it seems like an addiction, the thrill of waiting for me to fuck up again so she can be there to fix me. That’s what this is: she must see me as a project, someone she can fix.

“I just want to know, because it seems like you are addicted to the drama and ups and downs more than anything.”

called me out

How many times will he do this? I silently ask my reflection. No, how many times will I let him do this? That’s the real question.

I’m a fool for chasing after him after his cold dismissal, but I love him, and this is what you do when you love someone: you fight for him—you chase after him when you know he needs you. You help him fight the battle against himself, and you never give up on him, even when he gives up on himself.

My earlier thoughts regarding love and not giving up on the one you love couldn’t be further from the truth. I was wrong this entire time. When you love people, you don’t let them destroy you along with themselves, you don’t allow them to drag you through the mud. You try to help them, try to save them, but the moment that your love is one-sided or selfish, if you keep trying, you are a fool.

Yes girl

people can only change themselves, no matter how hard you try. They have to want it as bad as you do or there is no hope.

It’s impossible to change people who have their mind set on who they are.

Maybe I’m in shock after all. Shock isn’t a bad place, though. I’d like to stay here as long as I can. It hurts less.

The sun disappears, hiding behind the clouds. Even the sun doesn’t want to be near him.

The burn of betrayal and the sting of rejection hurt, but nothing compares to the pain of being empty. Nothing hurts worse than not hurting at all,

If I’m lucky, I could at least once again be the girl I was before I left home. That girl is long gone, though. She took a ticket straight to hell, and here she sits, silently burning.

“I don’t have anything left, Hardin. I don’t have anything left to give you. You’ve already taken it all, and I’m sorry, but there’s just nothing left.”

“I thought that we could make it. I thought ours was a love of the novels, a love that no matter how hard and fast and tough it was, I thought we would survive anything and everything and live to tell the story.” “We can, we can survive it!” he chokes out. I can’t look at him, because I know what I would see. “That’s just it, Hardin, I don’t want to have to survive. I want to live.”

I can’t continue to be the fuel to his fire when he’s constantly coming back with bucket upon bucket of water to extinguish it.

I’m naïve and foolish to keep trying to find the good in people when all they do in return is prove me wrong.

I feel for others, even when I shouldn’t, and I would like to think that eventually that trait will stop being my downfall. Caring is a good trait to have, but it hurts me too often.

The words signified her trust in me; the movements of her body engraved her loyalty to me; and the promise of her love for me filled me, body and soul.

There were so many things I should have said, could have said, and sure as hell would have said if I had known my days in heaven were numbered.

I saw the empty, sad girl smile for the sad boy who loves her with all of his broken soul.

If I had known it would hurt this bad, if I had known the way it would rip me apart, then sew me back together, only to tear me into pieces again, I would have stayed as far away from Hardin Scott as I possibly could.

I’m ready for this. I’m ready to live in Seattle if that’s what she wants, and my offer of marriage isn’t going anywhere. Not this time. I’ll marry that girl and live in Seattle until I die if that’s what she wants, if that’s what makes her happy.

I need to be myself. Just a version of me who is worthy of her love.

“You do say the right things; you always have. I just couldn’t hear you before.”

I only live when it comes to her. She’s the only breath of life inside of me, and without it I will be nothing. I will neither survive nor live.

Why did it take me finally pulling away for him to want to change?

Thats how they all are girl

I’ve finally learned that I can’t depend on anyone else for my happiness.

I was always so quick to judge women who felt this way. While watching an overly dramatic relationship on-screen, I was quick to label the woman as “weak,” but it’s not that simple or that cut-and-dried.

YEP

I never understood the way love overpowers common sense and passion overtakes logic, or how unnerving it is that no one else really knows how you feel—no one can judge me for being weak or stupid, no one can put me down for the way I feel.

No one, not even the doubting part of me, can make me feel bad for loving passionately and hoping desperately that I could have that great love that I’ve read about in novels.

“Seriously, it’s okay to be sad, but if you let sadness control your life, you’ll never have one.”

“Men are assholes. Every single one of them.”

It was weird, though, feeling that slip from my body. I’ve heard it explained in novels—forgiveness, they call it—but I’ve never felt it until tonight.

jesus christ

I had no clue that this obnoxious blonde was walking around waiting to turn my entire life upside down by driving me absolutely insane and making me love her more than I love breathing.

“Oh, hell no. No one will be getting pregnant, asshole. Go to hell for even trying to curse me with that shit.” I shove at his shoulder, and he laughs harder. Marriage is one thing. Babies, a totally fucking other thing.

I agree with him here

I don’t like kids or babies or teenagers, but then again, I don’t like adults either.

it doesn’t matter how much you say it if you don’t remotely show it or make me feel the truth in your words.”

let’s be real here: the two of you were basically kissing cousins.

i giggled

Landon demanded that Hardin hit him. Hardin’s temper was already shot; he felt betrayed and screwed over again, and yet he didn’t do it. Hardin Scott walked away from violence, even in the heat of the moment.

I’ve watched him change so much since the day I met the rude, tattooed boy with the piercings and the messiest hair I had ever seen. He’s not that boy anymore; he’s a man now, a man recovering.

“Why won’t you get another internship? You’re more than a waitress.” “There is nothing wrong with being a server, and

yeah girl tell himmmmm

maybe some people only want to read about happiness and cliché love stories, but there are millions of people, people who aren’t perfect and have been through shit in their lives, and maybe they want to connect with it?

Ope this must be me

“This is the type of love story that deals with real fucking problems. It’s a story about forgiveness and unconditional love, and it shows how much a person can change, really change, if they try hard enough. It’s the type of story that proves that anything is fucking possible when it comes to self-recovery. It shows that if you have someone to lean on, someone who loves you and doesn’t give up on you, you can find your way out of the darkness. It shows that no matter what type of parents you had, or addictions you were faced with, you can overcome anything that stands in your way and become a better person. That’s the type of story After is.”

He wants to remind her that whatever their souls are made of, his and hers are the same. Their favorite novel said it best.

You’re just overthinking this. I know a thing or two about that.”

The worst part of being okay is that okay is far from happy. Okay is that gray space in the middle where you can wake up each day and carry on with your life, even laugh and smile often, but okay isn’t joy. Okay isn’t looking forward to each second of your day, and okay isn’t getting the most out of life. Being okay is what most people settle for, myself included, and we pretend that okay is fine, when we actually hate it, and we spend the majority of our time waiting to break out of just being okay.