Unloved

by Katy Regnery

I long for someone. In my loneliest moments, I long for someone so fiercely, it aches. I want someone to hold me, to whisper in my ear, to braid their fingers through mine and breathe against my skin. I want to know love again. In fact, I actively yearn for it, though I can’t actually imagine accepting it.

“Saying goodbye doesn’t mean forgetting. Moving on doesn’t mean you never loved him. I’m telling you to let go. I’m telling you that you’re allowed to be happy.”

You can’t miss something you’ve never known. You can’t long for something you never had.

I wish I was the sun so I could shine down on her, so I could examine every peak and valley of her face until I have it memorized and can recall it at any lonesome moment: the sad, beautiful, green-eyed girl from the forest.

Joy is exuberant. Grief is oppressive. Fear is constricting.

Anyone with half a brain loves romance novels, and the rest are lying.

Only a man without character would build his life on a lie. Only a bad man would risk the lives of others for his own pleasure or cheap-bought freedom.

There is no me without you. . . . and it’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before.

“Sooner or later everyone was driven to love someone they could never have.”

There is such profound relief in being understood—in finally being known in the inexplicable way that can come only from empathy, from one broken person fathoming the grief of another.

It’s . . . it’s hard for people to understand that, isn’t it? They want to help. They want to be there for you. But sometimes all you need is quiet. Space and peace. And time.”

The minutes I’ve spent with her are the greatest gift my quiet life has ever known.

We’re young, but of age. We’re untethered to others and attracted to each other. We’re all alone out here in the middle of nowhere.

I love her. I will love her until the sky falls. Until the sun and moon fail to rise.

Stupid girl that I am, I have fallen in love with him. Utterly, totally, completely in love with him. And all I want is a forever that I cannot have.

We recognize certain days as the happiest, after all, only because we have something else to compare them with. And because they are finite.

To keep her safe, send her away. If you love her, let her go. There is redemption only through action. There is peace only through righteousness.

I love you, I wish I could say. And if things were different, I’d love you forever, my sweet angel.

Thank you for giving me the happiest days of my sorry life. Thank you for seeing the good in me when I know there is so much bad deep inside. Thank you for loving me when I was certain I’d spend the rest of my life unloved. I promise—I give you my most sacred vow—that I will never come looking for you again. I will leave you alone to find happiness. I will leave you alone so that I know you’re safe.

You are, and will forever be, my life’s greatest treasure, and I will still be loving you on the day I die, Brynn Cadogan.

And I will never give up on the love we share or the future we can have together.

And I do it because I love her and never, ever—not for one second in any day between now and the one on which I die—will I forget that she is my life, my beating heart, my angel, and my salvation.

She was my magic. She healed me. She gave me back my life. She is, and will forever be, my life’s greatest treasure. Because of her, I am loved.