Ever After Always (Bergman Brothers, #3)

by Chloe Liese

Aiden said, whatever it was, he wanted to fix it, but how do you fix something when you don’t even know what’s broken? Or when it feels so broken you don’t even recognize it anymore?

deepening twinge of cramps that have wracked my stomach all day, the first signs of what I knew was coming but have been dreading all the same: another cycle and no baby.

It’s an ache that never leaves my chest, with every mom I see, whether pregnant or with children in arms or running ahead of her, the nagging question in the back of my head, When will it be me?

“About that word, fair…the idea of ‘fair’ in a marriage, any relationship, I mean it’s impossible. No marriage is fair. It’s complementary. The idea of ‘fair’ is absurd at best, ableist at worst.”

At some point, every love is a tragedy. It just doesn’t have to stay that way. We choose our endings. That’s Aristotle’s point. Tragedy is built—it has a structure. And if that’s not the ending you want, then you get out of that trajectory. You change the narrative.”

I want to run out of the house, just as much as I want to throw myself on his lap and kiss him senseless.

Those words send a chill over my skin. I chose it over her. Over everything.

“Romance is about the centrality of loving relationships, and it reminds us that human connection is vital to existence, rather than glorifying egoism or violence or greed. So excuse my genre for not being perfect, but let’s back the fuck up from hypocritically critiquing books that have done a lot more for humanity than slashers and circle-jerk, five-hundred-page, nihilistic tomes.”

They want apologies to wipe away the pain. But pain takes time to heal. You can forgive and hurt as you recover from the wound.

My heart—its depth and wildness—isn’t meant to be buried. It’s meant to power my life. To fuel my work, my relationships, my pursuit of joy.

Because that’s what trust is—a free fall of belief that your faith is not misplaced, that the rope you’re relying on will catch you, and the precipitous drop won’t crush you but instead end in a rush of relief, a stronger capacity to be brave and fearless.

we can choose how to live—miserable about what we’ve lost or grateful for what we still have.

“Sometimes I feel beautiful. Sometimes I don’t. I’m always grateful for my body. That’s enough.”

Love’s true test, the measure of its strength, is its bravery to be honest, its willingness to face the hardest moments and say, Even though there’s nothing to be done, at least I have you.

“I love you beyond words and time and space. I wish I could articulate how grateful I feel each morning, to wake up and see you next to me. Even when life’s shit and the world feels heavy, I look at you…” He sighs. “Knowing I have you…that’s everything I need.”

“You don’t protect me, because I am your mamma,” she whispers. “Mothers protect their children.