The Reality of Everything (Flight & Glory, #5)

by Rebecca Yarros

It was impossible to offer someone a heart I didn’t have. Mine was buried over five hundred miles away at West Point.

If my life was an ocean, then the water was Will.

This woman knew pain, and not just in a general sense. In the very real, raw, intimate way that changed a person—refined them like the sea glass.

“I mean, it’s always the things that look harmless that end up wrecking you, right?”

Something stirred inside my chest, as if part of me had been asleep for too long and was blinking awake, shielding her eyes from the sun. Except Jackson was the sun.

How impossible it would be to survive when my ruined heart was inevitably broken again.

“Maybe it is futile. Maybe one day we’ll be forced to abandon it. But it’s okay to fight for something you love, to dig it out and build it back up in hopes that this time the foundation will be strong enough to withstand the hurricane.

“And it’s okay to do all you can and still lose, still get washed away. It sucks, but it’s a far less tragic ending than never having tried.”

“I’ll come read with you,” he offered in what had to be the sexiest voice imaginable. Hell, that was the sexiest line imaginable.

In fact, I have yet to see any version of you I don’t like. They’re all just you.”

Once something shows you how deadly it can be, I choose to believe it and steer clear.”

The thing about the ocean is she can lull you into thinking you’re her equal. You understand her tides, her waves, her currents, and you begin to feel like you’re partners, as though the love you feel for her is somehow returned.”