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.

“It hurts because we love him. 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.”

“Whatever else is taken from you, never lose hope. Even if you see how dark the world can be, choose to believe it could be better.”

All the world stopped except us. We were bound together in its center, still spinning like two figures in a music box, locked in each other’s arms.

I don’t know why we can love things on other people but not ourselves.

A thread doesn’t see the weaving, it doesn’t know its own color and pattern. But it takes its place all the same.

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.

Childhood is a land you leave once and never return.