Juniper Unraveling (Juniper Unraveling #1)

by Keri Lake

I was a savage, before I was assimilated into the Szolen way of life. Now I’m just a prisoner trapped in their mindset. The savages disgust them because they represent a terrifying reality. Without these walls, they’d be one of them. Dirty. Starving. Infected. Struggling to survive in a harsh world.

I’ve also come to realize that pain doesn’t strike at once, as one might think. It’s organic. From the moment you fall in love with someone, your pain begins. You just don’t feel it yet, but it’s there. The silence beneath your laughter. The shadows behind an embrace. Tranquility before the storm. The deeper you fall in love, pain follows like a ghost, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Could take an entire lifetime, or just a couple of short months. Pain has no concept of time, and when it arrives, you’re never ready for it. But it’s always been there, hiding behind a mask of denial, deceiving you into thinking there’s such a thing as eternal happiness.

Falling in love means you have to be brave enough to accept the pain when it comes to stake its claim.

I chose this side of that wall, where survival is harder, but real.