A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2)

by Staci Hart

Her name in my mind was a curse I couldn't escape, a ghost that haunted me day after day, year after year since I'd seen her last so long ago.

Now let the night be dark for all of me / Let the night be too dark for me to see / Into the future. Let what will be, be."

He kissed me with a thousand promises on his lips, his fingers tracing my jaw, tilting my chin, telegraphing his love through his skin against mine.

"I've loved you from the second I first saw you. I might have loved you before I'd ever met you. I think … I think I'd been waiting on you, and I think if I hadn't met you, I'd have just gone on waiting."

but I believed in compatibility and chemistry. I believed in the feeling of being so tied to another person that you didn't want to be without them. I believed in love that doesn't die, mostly because I'd lived in that hell for seven years, regretting all the reasons we were apart, wishing for forgiveness, wishing I'd made different choices, used different words, just … wishing I'd done it all differently.

"Braveness isn't always loud. Sometimes it's silent. There's braveness in sacrifice and kindness. It's in doing a thing that needs to be done, even though it's hard, and even though it hurts."

Home is not a place, Not a smell, Not a face, But a space In your heart. -M. White

All that stuff you don't want to say, you've just got to say it, and then you've got to listen to her say all that stuff you don't want to hear."

And when you think That you have found Your feet planted firmly And your heart sound That is when the moment You trip, Fall, And hit the ground. -M. White

I was whole again in his arms.

You are loved and cared for, with or without me. So please, don't break or bend. Don't crumble and fall. Stand up tall and face the sun and remember me."

Don't mourn me; celebrate me. Don't think of me with sadness, think of me with joy."

"Life is short, so short, so precious, every minute, every day. Don't let the people you love, the people who make you happy, the people who bring you joy — don't let them go. Hang on to them, even when it hurts. When it seems impossible. Hold on to the things that breathe life into you. Listen to your soul and honor what it tells you. Live. Fight for what you love. Because one day, you'll be where I am, and in that moment I want you to look back gladly, with no regrets."

"Your hate has only strengthened my desire to be kind. Your anger has only made me more compassionate. I'm only sorry that I wasted it on you for all these years."

"There is no length to love; it's infinite. It lives in you always. Hold on to it." "But it hurts," she sobbed. "That's how you know it was real."