More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
At this point, I understand clearly who’s critical and who isn’t. One person is critical. Just one.
Fuck, I’ve never loved someone the way I love him.
“I’m not going to let you die. You hear me?”
“...I don’t want to die…” His neck strains.
“I’m lightning then, and you’re thunder. You always follow me every time I appear.”
Later. There will be a later. There has to be one.
I’ve never been afraid to die. And then tonight. I was afraid. I was fucking terrified.
Farrow knows this doctor.
Farrow’s ex is right in front of me. Something that I thought could only happen in an alternate universe. One that I honestly didn’t want to visit.
‘The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time.’”
“Dum spiro, spero.” I circled that phrase in my paperback. I know he took Latin in college, but I ask anyway, “You know what that means—” “‘While I breathe,’” he translates, “‘I hope.’”
“Swallow a Vicodin, Moffy. There is a list of weak people in our families who’d drown in a craving, and you’re not one of them.”
talk to my brother (later). A porn star bought you (Jesus Christ). Protect your brother, protect your sisters, protect everyone (always).
Alright, my mind can shut the fuck up now.
Akara is playing with her chocolate brown hair, and he coils a long strand over his upper lip in a fake mustache. Sulli cracks a smile and shoves his chest.
Farrow slips his arm off me, eyes fluttering open into a glare aimed at the window.
I’m putting Farrow in this fucked-up situation. If he weren’t in a public relationship with me, no one would shout that on a goddamn city street.
“You realize I’ve dealt with internet trolls calling you, my boyfriend, a sack of shit, a dumb fuck, a spoiled bastard, and much, much worse. I couldn’t do a fucking thing, and still, I’m standing. I haven’t broken down yet, so what the hell are you protecting me from, Maximoff?”
I fucking know Farrow like he knows me.
“It’s not like you’ve had a public relationship before me. I’m your first—hopefully your last. You’ve never experienced this shit either.”
“When I love someone,” he says in a rough whisper, “I love them proudly, and you deserve the achingly normal, romantic shit more than anyone. Everything you’ve never had. All the pictures you post, all the videos you do on your own, I want to be in them—and it’d kill me not to give you that. Especially now that we’re public.”
My dad’s brows scrunch at me. “Did your mom and I not teach you the art of being a couch potato? Jesus Christ, I’ve truly failed as a parent.”
Ryke adds, “You couldn’t have protected her from a car crash. That’s not on you. Don’t ever put that fucking weight on yourself.”
He heard Maximoff and me. Saw him say his goodbyes. Saw us together, thinking it could’ve been the last time.
“We’re getting our Meredith back.” He slow-claps. I smile. “Man, you know I’m a Christina.”
climb off the bed buck-naked, and while he rises, equally buck-ass-naked, I gesture him to me. “Come over.”
My dad raised me to be like Ryke. Because he loved his brother more than he loved himself.
Maximoff moves forward. Our arms find each other, and our mouths crash together, hungry and starved—I clutch the back of his head, and his arm hooks around my shoulders.
I’m not used to being in bed alone, and I crave for those days on the FanCon tour bus where I could easily crawl into Farrow’s bunk.
“It’s the rain,”
Connor is mental. He taught Maximoff intelligence, emotional restraint and confidence. Lo is emotional, the sarcastic, loving and empathetic pieces of him. And then Ryke is physical, all determination and stubbornness and unshakeable strength.
Connor tells the table, “In other news, I was offered a condom sponsorship this morning.”
I blink. Those are my three siblings. All the Hales. And I’m left here. I hurt him. I hurt him. I crack my taut neck, pressure on my chest.
Is this letter magical or something?
there’s no way, there’s no damn way this is happening.
Rowin slinks up on me, seemingly so rapidly because my reflexes lurch in shock. His intrusive gaze is tearing off my swimsuit, his hands dangerously close.
Xander rakes his hand over his face, hot tears pouring out. “I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry. I didn’t mean what I said earlier. I love you, you know I love you, right?”
New mission: find Farrow and then push Rowin off this yacht.
I can’t rid the nauseous scent of rain on metal.
“Are you…?” My face twists in agonized thought. “Are you saying that you came onto my boyfriend?”
I don’t move away from this door because wolf scout is coming in hot. He has one sole focus. And it’s not on me right now.
“You’re safe, wolf scout.”
He buries his face in the crook of my neck. And he screams. An angered, tormented noise barrels out of him. All this caged emotion is muffled against my shoulder and neck—and I hold him. Fuck, I’m not letting go.
I tell him I wasn’t alone. I tell him that I love him. I tell him not to worry because I’m not worried about it, and he lets me hold more of his weight.
“Better than their muggle castle.”
“Dum spiro, spero,” he reads the Cicero quote. His eyes well up again. On a day that rocked us both, he said he loved that quote. It was a quiet moment inside a storm. The memory is as tranquil as the quote itself. While I breathe, I hope.
