The Winners (Beartown, #3)

by Fredrik Backman

But he really did love her, the way only a thoroughly kind man could, quietly but beyond measure.

“Cheer up, Bambi! You look like someone stole your butter and rammed your money up your ass. This is hardly the first time there’s been a fight in this rink, is it?”

Johnny and the other firemen spent two hours in the garage drinking beer and peering at the engine of the van after they came back from Beartown. They didn’t fix anything, of course, but they looked very sternly at the engine as if it could be talked into working properly.

When you’re young you believe that love is infatuation, but infatuation is simple, any child can become infatuated, fall in love. But real love? Love is a job for an adult. Love demands a whole person, all the best of you, all the worst. It has nothing to do with romance, because the hard part of a marriage isn’t that I have to live seeing all your faults, but that you have to live with me seeing them. That I know everything about you now. Most people aren’t brave enough to live without secrets. Everyone dreams about being invisible sometimes, no one dreams of being transparent.

“She doesn’t want a remarkable life, just a… normal one. Our dad’s a fireman, our mom’s a midwife, we’ve spent our whole childhoods getting told we’re being raised by heroes. The sort of people who run toward fire. But Bobo isn’t a hero, and my sister can probably see that. He wouldn’t run toward fire, he’d run toward her.”

Aleksandr doesn’t look entirely convinced, at times during her explanation he actually looked at her as if she was trying to get him to smell a fart she was particularly proud of.