Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology Book 2)

by Kelsey Kingsley

From an early age, we were encouraged to find someone to share our lives with. A wife. A husband. Someone to raise a family with, grow old with, die with. With. This was what we were taught—or at least, most people were—and that a life wasn’t full or worth a damn unless you were accompanied by another person on this journey that would always, ultimately, end in loneliness.

“I have spent my entire life wanting him to love me and not knowing why he doesn’t. When Laura was around, he … he was able to pretend, I guess. I don’t know why, but those were the best few years of my life with him. We got along. Maybe he just liked her, and because she came with me, he forced himself to like me, too, but once she was gone, it was over.

She was everything I never knew I needed. A breath of air after being suffocated. A ray of sun after living in the dark. She was a feast of terrific joy after being famished, living on nothing but sadness for years. And all those things and everything else was what brought my lips down to hers, tethered by an invisible string until they met. Two broken, jagged pieces fitting together to create something smoothed out and perfect. Whole.