Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)

by Abby Jimenez

“You’re new to this whole single-in-your-thirties thing so you don’t know what it looks like out there, and I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t look good. It’s like picking through a garbage heap looking for the least disgusting thing.

“Look at that man-trum. Eight thousand nerves in the clitoris and still not as sensitive as a white man not getting his way.”

I had a quick second of what-if. What if the chemistry was gone or the attraction didn’t feel the same, or I’d built her up in my head and she wasn’t like I remembered? And the second I saw her, I knew I hadn’t imagined a thing.

“Ali, men are two things. Disappointing and consistent. I believe you.”

My days are filled with unplanned pregnancies and STDs—from husbands. Men are shit. It’s why I stay with Marcus. He’s too busy to screw anyone else, let alone me,”

“Nope. It’s a waste of time. I spend two hours on TikTok, and I lose two hours. I spend two hours in my workshop, and I have a chair. I prefer the chair.”

“Grace costs you nothing.

She was like a kid wielding her one-star reviews like a toy, for fun. Only it wasn’t a game. It was someone’s livelihood.

Mom gave me one of those silent “resistance is futile, let it go” looks.

Daniel transported me. Everything about being here and being with him was a break from reality. He was closing open tabs on a laptop in my brain one at a time until he was the only thing on the screen.

I felt eerily numb afterward, like I’d officially hit my capacity to process crappy things.

He had become the brightest light in my life, what I looked forward to every day.

“They lure you in. They make you feel like you’re the best thing to ever happen to them, like you’re the most special woman in the world—like you’re seeing something rare. But that’s the trap. It’s how they get you close enough to drown you. And Liz? Nobody can save you until you’re ready to save yourself.”

“I love you more. If you think I want any of this without you in it, you don’t know anything about me.”

She came together like a puzzle that had been missing pieces.

The hole inside of me was so deep, it was all I was. I didn’t know how I’d live the rest of my life without her. And then I knew unequivocally that leaving Wakan wouldn’t change any of it. It wouldn’t get better somewhere else. Because you carry love with you. And the realization that I couldn’t escape this was so devastating, so overwhelming, I couldn’t breathe.

I didn’t want to coddle my toxic parents. I didn’t want to die a martyr on the pyre of Royaume Northwestern, no matter how honorable that might be. I didn’t want my eighty-hour-a-week job because even though it should be, it wasn’t filling my well. I didn’t want this house or this life. All I wanted was Daniel.