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“I’d say that’s just about the nicest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”
But the truth is incapable of real harm. It is we who do harm, when we refuse to face what is real, because it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.
She’d had her share of adult relationships, but she’d skipped over this part of adolescence, the giddy flutter of first attraction, the breathless tug of young heartstrings.
“I had a rough night.”
I know that sounds harsh, but if someone doesn’t want to be your friend, you can’t make them.”
Why had she cut her friends dead, and broken up with her longtime crush? And
Time leaves its wounds on us all, battering us in ways we do our best to hide.
we walk our own path and live our own truth. It’s always been a rough road for those who live differently from the herd.
Lizzy stared at the desiccated flower resting in her lap, golden once, now nearly leached of color.
to remember that fear often masquerades as hate, and that forgiveness is balm to the wounded heart.
That people who had known Althea all their lives could have abandoned her so completely was still incomprehensible.
But what of the others? Those who had spurned the rumors but kept a careful distance? Who’d never quite found the courage to speak out? Who had simply remained invisible? Where did they fall on the scale of betrayal? Where did she fall?
A favor I owe.”
She’d done a job of it too, creating something straight out of a fairy tale, complete with a curved stone path, ivied trellis, and flower boxes for the windows. In its heyday, it had drawn
“Consider it a gift,” Lizzy said, waving the offer away. “For old times’ sake.”
oils. But for Penny, it wasn’t small at all. It meant relief, a place to turn when conventional medicine fell short, which to someone in chronic pain must feel like a miracle. Was that how Althea felt every day—like a miracle worker?
A bead of sweat traced its way down Lizzy’s back.
it was not an easy flower to press, too fragile in many ways to survive the harshness required to preserve it. But in the right hands, with the proper care, even the most fragile thing can withstand hardship and, in the end, yield a new kind of beauty—and so many lessons.
pain. The kind people lived with when their hearts had been broken.
“I think most of us leave this world with unfinished business. Things we never said, chances we never took, wrongs we never righted. Maybe they keep us here.
It wasn’t in her DNA to hold back when something needed saying.
Snatches of her conversation with Andrew kept running through her head. He’d surprised her tonight. But then he’d always had a way of surprising her.
Nothing prepared me for her sullen moods and wild ways.
if you don’t mind. We also have some questions, if you can spare a few minutes.”
It was her own fault. Without meaning to, she’d let down her guard, allowed herself to hope that after years of distance and rejection, there might actually be a way for them to move forward as more than just polite strangers.
It’s about intention, Lizzy, about sending what’s in your heart into your work.
You liked things mapped out, predictable, safe. But that’s not the nature of who we are. Life, particularly for women like us, doesn’t come with a road map. Nor do the people in our lives.
We each have a shadow-self, a dark place we go to hide when we’re hurt or afraid.
It’s part of the journey we all came here to make, the stings and losses all part of our walk.
It’s easier to be prickly than to be vulnerable, to distract with harsh words rather than show our bruises.
His tone stung, but he had every right to be annoyed. She’d given him the green light, then slammed on the brakes.
you’re a bully. And bullies are just cowards who pretend to be tough guys.
She looked so beautiful in the moonlight, so cool and still, and so very far away. But then she’d always had a talent for detachment, an ability to hold herself apart from the world around her—and from him.
He took a careful step back. He could wait. Even if waiting meant never.
I have been waiting, and I’ll keep waiting, because I can’t seem to help myself.”
It would be too easy to backslide, to surrender to the delicious pull of memory.
Bridges can be built across the widest chasms, even when all we have to build with are broken pieces. “It’s
A man does what he has to.
Guilt was a cruel and relentless jailer.
For starters, she’d be sending mixed signals, not to
Still, there’s a kind of peace at the end of a life well lived, knowing that you’ve given what you had to give, loved where you were free to love, that you’ve left nothing unsaid or undone.
What I tell you next, I have never told anyone. I have kept it hidden, locked up tight in the deepest reaches of my heart.
We’ve been taught that to love is to give ourselves away. But that’s wrong. We lose nothing when we love. It’s only in refusing to love that we pay, and lose the most precious part of ourselves. That’s why we’ve come—to love. Because that’s all there is. It’s all love—and it’s all magick. I’m tired now, and my Circle has drawn to its close.
