Anastasia

by Sophie Lark

This is my fantasy of the happy ending Anastasia deserved. Not because she was a Romanov, but because she was a human. I want all of you to have the happy ending you deserve—it’s why I love writing romance.

That’s the balance of life, hard as it is to accept. A heart open to joy is a heart vulnerable to sorrow. There’s no family without loss, no love without pain.”

I wondered if she was fucking with the flow of time. Everything seemed to pause when our eyes met.

Nobody wanted us to dance together. Nobody but me.

No one told me I’d be great—I decided for myself.”

I’d just had my arm splinted by Dr. Atticus. My head was reeling from the milky tincture he’d forced me to drink, the pain fading to a dull throb. “At least it’s your left arm,” Maria said kindly. “She’s left-handed,” Tatiana reminded her. “Oh, right.” Maria grimaced.

LMAOOO

When I stop in Riga, my father’s coming to see me. Do you think I got an accent living in the city so long? You have one, but I always liked it. —D

this slow burn is driving me insane

Stay alive, please. I’ve never asked you for anything before. So I may as well start with the hardest and most important thing. —A

STOPPPPP

I’m bringing some of my uncles and cousin, a few old friends … They want to meet my favorite princess.

im literally screaming

We met in the middle of the field, in an ocean of purple with papery white butterflies fluttering all around us. She ran to me, her whole face illuminated with a wild happiness that caught me like a whirlwind, so I swept her up in my arms and swung her around.

Our mouths met, her lips warm from the sun. I tasted her, and all the world stopped around us.

Her breath went into my lungs and our souls overlaid like two transparent images. She was me and I was her and we were one together, something that held all the world in its grip, stealing this moment for us alone.

sophie lark's writing in this is UNMATCHED!

Anastasia ran to me, smiling brighter than the sun. All my jealousy melted like frost. As she held out her hands to me, I wouldn’t have traded places with anybody in the world.

“Every mark on you is something you survived to get back to me. You have never looked more beautiful.”

I AM SOBBING.

I kissed each and every one so she would know there was nothing ugly about her to me, there never could be. Every part of her was precious, every part was perfect—her strengths and her flaws, her heart and her mind.

If the dead feel anything, it’s the joy of the living. We must glow like lanterns to them, through the screen that separates us all.

I looked at her a long time without speaking. “What?” She smiled. “Do I look strange?” “You look like my best friend.”

Fulfillment is equal to the difficulty of the job. Those who never face something that could break them will never know the satisfaction of finding yourself whole and triumphant on the other side.