The Afterlife of Holly Chase

by Cynthia Hand

That’s how it felt like love should be—inevitable. Irresistible. Written in the stars.

Because I knew: You can try to keep the worst things down inside you. You can shove them away, not think about them, not deal. But they bubble up to the surface. They always do.

“He’d ask me about the things I read, too,” Ro said. “Later, there was a period at the end of high school when he became a bit of a shut-in. I’d go and visit him, and we’d have these amazing conversations. About philosophy. Religion. Art. Once he said something about the nature of stories that I never forgot. He said, Without stories, we’re all just lonely islands.”

“Stories let us see and hear and feel what someone else does,” she explained. “They build bridges to the other islands. That’s why stories are so important. They create true empathy.”

“I just think, we don’t get promised anything good in this life. Bad things happen all the time. They’re happening right now, somewhere out there. They’ll keep happening. Who knows? Maybe this moment, right here, is as good as I’m ever going to be.”

“Love can be an excellent motivator for change. Falling in love can help us to see the things in life that are truly important. It can make us want to be better people. It can teach us to sacrifice what is in our own best interest for the sake of someone else.

My fortune read, It’s never too late to become what one could have been.

It’s a wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

And if you’re wondering if I changed—if I really and truly became a better person than I was in the beginning—I’ll tell you that I have good days and bad ones, of course, like everybody else, but I’m growing. I’ll get there.

But love doesn’t always have to be about the happy ending. Love can be about beginnings, too.