Most of All You: A Love Story

by Mia Sheridan

When you can’t figure out what to do, Racer, you go with your gut. You might not be right every time, but you’ll never regret following your own heart, especially one as pure as yours.

“It’s not the things you do with love and good intentions that you end up regretting. It’s the things you don’t do that you have to live with.

“There’s a special place in hell for people who knowingly take advantage of others more helpless than them.”

His breath against my neck was a calming wind, his smile the sunshine, his touch was a thousand rainbows dancing on my skin, and I loved him so much I thought my heart would burst.

“I’m living the life I was meant to have, Eloise. My life—just the way it is, for good or for bad—is the life I was meant to have. I could walk around all day thinking about how I was cosmically robbed, but what good would that do me? I’m living my life—the one I was given. It’s all any of us can do. To imagine otherwise is to deny that there’s a purpose to the suffering we might endure. Yes, I experienced pain, but maybe…maybe the reason for it is that because of my actions, no one else will ever be harmed by the man who abducted me. I don’t know. I don’t try to figure it out. I just trust that this life, my life, is the life I was meant to have, and I find peace in that.”

“Once,” she said, using a finger to trace my cheekbone, “you told me that solid stone is nothing more than sand and pressure and time.” Her hand dropped from my face to lie flat against my chest. “I was the sand, so easy to crumble. You provided the pressure, Gabriel, the holding together, the love. All the confidence you had in me was what I needed in order to take a chance on myself. And then you gave me the most selfless gift of all: time, so I could finally break apart and put myself back together.”