A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2)

by Staci Hart

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'd been my end game, and when things ended, the path of my life had been erased, left smudged and blurry. I hadn't found my way since.

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 love you. You love me. Everything else is details."

Thin soul, Stretched and pulled Left to bear the weight Of the world On its own.

I'd thought so much about why I couldn't move on, what it was about him that I couldn't forget. I didn't know that I believed in soulmates, 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.

Elliot was a shock to my nervous system, a bucket of ice water down my back, and the clarity it brought stung all the way to my bones.

Lou hadn't seen Elliot standing behind the girls — this wasn't uncommon, most people didn't see her unless they were looking right at her. I was unfortunately not one of those people.

I'd become an expert at compartmentalizing my feelings. It was the only way I survived, by stacking up dusty boxes in my heart for every hurt, packing them away in the dark. But times like these blew the dust off the tops, opening them up to free the old pain so they could do more harm in new ways.

Hurt is so easy, Loss so simple In its complexity, And to fall into The arms of the dark Is effortless. - M. White

Above they barely touch, but undermined / Down to their deepest source, / Admiring you shall find / Their roots are intertwined / Insep'rably."

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, / The saddest are these: It might have been!

"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

I found light and truth in the darkness, hiding there where I couldn't see, right in front of me the whole time. And all I had to do was reach out and touch her.

I existed in the space between our hands, between the beating of our hearts, between the breaths we slowly sipped, savoring the moment I'd imagined for so long.

Because I could give him time if he loved me. I could withstand the push and pull if he loved me.

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."

He'd flung away the no, the why, stripped his soul bare, and what he was, what was left was the truth: he was broken, maybe irreparably. But I could be what healed him, mended him. It was why he came here, I knew, and selflessly, this was what I wanted, for him to be whole again. Selfishly, I wanted nothing but him, only him, broken or whole. Anything was better than nothing at all.

"I need you," he whispered. "I love you," he breathed. "I'm sorry," he begged.

To live Is to feel So you know You are real. -M. White

Life is fluid — sometimes with cresting, white-capped waves, other times with an eerie stillness, a quiet surface. But it was never the same, day to day. And as sure as one day was up, the next may be down. Letting yourself ride the surface instead of kicking and fighting or sinking to the bottom like a stone was the only way to survive intact.

Love is a line Spanning the distance Between two hearts. -M.White

"I think that every day the answer to that question is different. Some days the loss is as fresh as the day the love left. Some days, you can breathe, not think of it for a stretch, sometimes just for an hour or a few minutes, sometimes for days. Sometimes you'll go a day or a week without breathing once because the loss is suffocating. It takes different faces: anger, hurt, longing. Sometimes it's bittersweet joy, because for a moment, you had it all. I want to tell you the pain gets easier, but it doesn't. You only learn to bear it. But there's comfort in knowing you loved and were loved in return, even though it's no consolation. Only a truth you carry around with you forever."

For time cannot stop, But moments, Seconds, A fleeting smile, A kiss in the sunlight, Can live forever. - M. White

With every end Comes a beginning, A new path forged Through the pain Of an end Giving life, Giving breath That once caught cannot be lost. -M. White Otherwise known as Elliot Marie Winters