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The truth is, we both learned a lesson that day: Aiden can only push so far. Freya can only take so much.
“Why don’t they warn us?” “What?” “Why doesn’t anyone tell you how hard marriage is going to be?” Mai sighs heavily. “Because I’m not sure we’d do it if they did.”
I want to be able to fix it. Because I love fixing shit.
And love doesn’t abandon,
How am I supposed to ‘know’ this love, Aiden? Where’s love when there’s no intimacy? No words, no affection. No hands searching for me in the dark.”
“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.” We both swivel our heads and look at her. “Ableist?” Freya asks. “Ableist,” Dr. Dietrich says. “Because saying a relationship has to be ‘fair’ implies only a certain balance and distribution of skills and aptitudes is valid. It upholds an arbitrary, damaging idea of ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ as requisite for fulfilling partnership. When in reality, all you need is two people who love what the other
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“Freya. Life’s not that simple.” “But my love is,” I say hoarsely, squeezing his wrists. “And you don’t get to say otherwise. It’s my heart. I know it.
How does this happen? How do you swear your life to someone, knowing you’ll both change? How do you promise each other ’til death do us part and happily ever after, knowing that more marriages end than survive?
He was tall and lanky and beautiful, almost too beautiful. An angular face that I felt like I could stare at for lifetimes and still not fully appreciate.
She should never doubt that I’d put myself between her and anything that could hurt her. What if that anything hurting her is you?
“Somewhere along the way, you forgot the day you became Freya’s, you became ours, too.”
I don’t mind your concern. I just wanted to reassure you.”
“Life’s hard, Aiden,” he says. “Kids make it incredibly beautiful, but they don’t make it any easier.
Sometimes, Freya, no matter how hard you try, you won’t know how much a person you love is hurting because that person doesn’t want to hurt the people who love them.”
Her hand slides down her body, stroking where she’s wet and flushed and so fucking pretty.
I feel so lucky. No, not lucky. Chance isn’t at play here. It’s a choice.
This twisted dance of always trying to fix ourselves and protecting each other from the parts that we couldn’t.
Even though there’s nothing to be done, at least I have you.
There are men who go down on a woman because they know it gets her off. Then there are men who use their mouth like it’s worship, like every single moment that their face is buried between her thighs is their idea of heaven.
Every couple needs to share plenty of life, but both people need their independence, too.
love doesn’t give second chances because we’ve earned them. Love gives second chances because it believes the best in who we are.
Right now it just hurts. It hurts.” “That’s because it’s complex. Because love doesn’t just stop or start because we want it to.
Your anxiety is a wily thing, Aiden. And it spins you like a top.
This is how it goes. People who love each other hurt each other, too. What matters is that they learn and they try their best not to hurt each other that way again.”
You’re my ever after.”
“I love you beyond words and time and space.
Aiden + Freya = 3,650 days 520 weeks 120 months 10 years 1 ever after always
“But even if you never did, I’d love you, just as you are.”
Everything around us glitters, iridescent and magical, but I hardly notice. All I see is the man I wrap my arms around and kiss like my world is the space between us, this moment, loving him.
