The Best of Me

by Nicholas Sparks

She’d either be a heartless mother and wife or a spineless enabler, when all she really wanted was the man she’d once believed him to be.

Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible.

Sometimes, though, she wondered what he felt when he thought of that year they spent together, or if he ever marveled at what they’d shared, or even whether he thought of her at all.

knowing that you’d moved on meant everything to me. I wanted you to have the kind of life that I’d never have been able to give you.”

she could no longer deny the simple truth that for the first time in years, she’d felt like she’d finally come home.

It wasn’t the life that they were meant to live, or even wanted to live, but there was nothing they could do to change it.”

Even when we were standing in the church and I was getting ready to take my vows, I can remember wishing that you were standing there, instead of him. Because I not only still loved you, but loved you beyond measure, and I suspected even then that I would never feel the same way about Frank.”