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August 3 - August 9, 2025
I do appreciate a good lost cause.
“I know that stories often take on lives of their own. I already feel as if the horror I went through is turning into a fairytale, but I’m nothing special, and this is not a fairytale.”
The pain she felt at missing Luc wasn’t even a scratch in comparison to the absence of her mother and father.
“I believe there are far more possibilities than happily ever after or tragedy. Every story has the potential for infinite endings.”
She knew some people would think this made her foolish, but it was tremendously hard to fully fall out of love with someone when you had no one else to love instead.
She’d always loved living in the south. She loved the heat of the sun and the overbright colors everyone wore. But now the brilliant streets of Valenda seemed too lurid. Here, everything was mist-touched. It was all foggy grays, rainy blues, and deep purples the exact color of fresh plums.
He was a thousand cuts happening all at once.
Her legs turned to custard.
But all Marisol had was her mother, who had torn her down instead of building her up.
Evangeline wanted to hope the woman was joking. She had to be joking. People who lived in sparkly purple castles didn’t threaten to feed guests to their dogs.
Or have you already forgotten the way heartbreak rips apart the soul piece by piece, how it turns you into a masochist, making you long for the thing that just eviscerated you until there’s nothing left of you to be destroyed?”
People called it falling out of love, but falling was easy. Letting go of Luc had been more like climbing the face of a rock. She’d clawed her way out, fighting to shake it off, to let it go, to find something else to hold on to.
You might not like me, but I bet you’d like it if I kissed you.”
“That was when I knew I loved him.” “All he did was tell you he liked you?” Jacks sounded disappointed. “That was his grand gesture? Haven’t any other boys been nice to you?”
When Evangeline thought of Marisol, she remembered the way she’d hugged her before the wedding as if they were really sisters. But what if that hadn’t been an I-love-you hug? Maybe it had been an I’m-sorry-I’m-going-to-kill-you hug.
Truth is often bitter, particularly when a person has been tasting more enjoyable lies. To remedy, you will need to erase the sweet taste of falsehood.
What would have been was a question that no one ever knew the answer to.
