From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

Challenges were only hard if you went into them expecting not to succeed.

Because it was easy to forget that love was complicated. That someone could love you and want the best for you, and at the same time, break you in half. There was such a thing as loving someone the wrong way. It was possible to love someone too much. Too forcefully.

How did Ivan know me so well and my own dad not? How could Ivan know all these things about me, and my own dad be disappointed in who I was?

And that was when the first wave of tears hit my eyes, and I gasped to keep them inside of me.

The first time she cried in the book

I hated crying. But I didn’t realize I hated being alone more.

My dad had hurt me. And baby and adult Jasmine had never known what to do with that.

And I wanted to be better. For me. Not for anyone else.

I loved him. I loved this man so much that losing him was going to break my cold, dead heart into so many pieces I was just going to have to stick them in the same box I kept my dreams and carry it around with me forever.

“Because I’m okay with you having ten other people be your favorite. But you’re always going to be my favorite person,” he finished. “Always. No matter what.”