Rebel (Legend, #4)

by Marie Lu

Real men don’t press flowers into their books. They don’t spill their insecurities to their friends. Daniel certainly doesn’t tell me about all the things that happened to him in his past. Real men suck it up and change the subject until their hearts wither to dust inside them.

She was the flint lighting sparks in my darkness, illuminating a history that I can just barely see.

There are a million pieces of us scattered through my memory, moments tiny and insignificant to everyone else in the world except for me.

And everything inside me breaks, every barrier and hesitation and insecurity, it all shatters as the feeling of her with me crashes through my chest. I wonder if it will be like this every time we touch. Everything in me wants to press us against the wall and kiss her harder, to make up for all the time we’ve lost. I want her arms to wrap around my neck, pulling me down to her. I want her so badly. All the questions unanswered between us—What do we do? Where do we go from here?—fade away, leaving only the sharp present, her body warm in my embrace.

Because sometimes, broken pieces find a way to make a new whole.

one of millions of things happening in each of our lives, the small steps you take that are invisible to everyone else in the world. The steps that, nevertheless, matter the most.