The Girl in the Moss (Angie Pallorino, #3)

by Loreth Anne White

Life is like a river. Life is absurd. The only constant is the water of change.

They say they lived, survived, did it for someone. A loved one. The thought of that loved one infused them with a superhuman strength to fight death, because they had to go home. To that loved one.

Live in the moment. One step at a time. That’s all we can do.

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours . .

Sometimes we think we’re keeping secrets. But really, those secrets are keeping us.

The human mind doesn’t like unanswered questions. The instinct is to fill the unknown gaps with something, anything, even if it’s bizarre. That’s why closure is so important. Knowing, even when the truth hurts, you know?”

We all tell lies. We all have secrets. A secret can own a person. A secret is powerful. But only to the degree that the truth threatens someone.

Things happen for a reason, Angela. I firmly believe this. One needs to seize the opportunities where they present.

Past trauma never really leaves you. You need to make room, a home for it, and learn to live with it and use it in positive ways.”

men were generally straightforward. Women were more dangerous—because they were more devious. The aggression was usually quieter. And sometimes darkly passive, hidden like fly hooks in pretty feathers behind smiles and compliments and nice shoes.

Oh, the secrets we keep. And how they keep us. And the havoc the truth could wreak.

The truth wasn’t always pretty, but it was necessary.

Home was those you loved. And a family could be built of many disparate parts, irrespective of the past. Or because of it.

Nothing about life was simple, or black, or white. Life was like that water in the bay and that sky. Shades upon shades of gray. A continually shifting interplay of light against dark and, every now and then, a few rays of sun.

Secrets are forged and kept in the name of love. And hurt in the same.”

Maybe it wasn’t just truth. Maybe at the heart of it all, at the heart of all that was human, even in the dark, was love.