The Atonement (The Arrangement, #3)

by Kiersten Modglin

was disappointed—no, not a strong enough word—I was furious with myself for ever letting a man—a monster—control me. For ever letting him make me think my only choice was to do whatever it took to keep him in my life. For ever letting him believe I was something less than whole without him. I was a whole person before Peter. I could be whole again without him. I would be whole again without him.

Do you see your father struggling? Well, you won’t. Because divorced men have it easy. They aren’t tainted goods like we are.

The world doesn’t ever stop needing things from you, does it?

“Sometimes things just don’t work out. Sometimes people are more broken together than they could ever be apart.”

you should never stay in a situation where you don’t feel loved and respected.

Then again, how well do we ever know the people in our lives? How well can you know your spouse? Was there anyone out there who could say they’d never been surprised or disappointed by the person they loved most? Surely, we weren’t the outliers. It was human nature. I had to believe everyone had parts of themselves they refused to display to anyone—the whispered motivations, internal desires, embarrassing decisions, and mortifying reasons behind actions we’d never dare reveal to anyone.