The Last Thing He Told Me (Hannah Hall, #1)

by Laura Dave

Watching my grandfather work taught me that not everything was fluid. There were certain things that you hit

from different angles, but you never gave up on. You did the work that was needed, wherever that work took you.

“So tell me,” he said. “What was your favorite thing today?” This was something we sometimes did on days we got home late—on days we were too tired to get into the big stuff. We each picked one thing from the day to tell each other about. One good thing from our separate lives.

My grandfather had raised me to depend on myself. My problems came when I tried to fit myself into someone else’s life, especially when that meant giving up a part of myself in the process. So

That it was also a peeling back, to seeing what was inside the wood, what the wood had been before. It was the first step to creating something beautiful. The first step to making something out of nothing.

This is the terrible thing about a tragedy. It isn’t with you every minute. You forget it, and then you remember it again. And you see it with a stark quality: This is what is required of you now, just to get along.

But that’s not how you learn you can count on someone. You learn it in the moments when everyone’s too tired to be sweet, too tired to try

“My grandfather used to say that most people don’t want to hear the thing that will make it work better,” I said. “They want to hear what will make it easier.”

“Sometimes your passion takes work and you shouldn’t give up on it just because it isn’t easy…” She takes on Owen’s voice, imitating him. “Sometimes, kid, you need to work harder to get to a better place.”

How do you explain it when

you find in someone what you’ve

been waiting for your whole life? Do you call it fate? It feels lazy to call it fate. It’s more like finding your way home—where home is a place you secretly hoped for, a place ...

This is the thing about good and evil. They aren’t so far apart—and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.

the deal we have to sign again and again to keep that love. We don’t turn away from the parts of someone we don’t want to see. However quickly or long it takes to see them. We accept them if we are strong enough. Or we accept them enough to not let the bad parts become the entire story.

It’s never about someone else the moment you realize it is up to you to get yourself to a better place. It’s only about figuring out how to get there.