The Atonement (The Arrangement, #3)

by Kiersten Modglin

And now, he was refusing to die. The easiest thing he could’ve done, yet he refused.

I 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.

When the place you’re visiting hasn’t changed a bit, but you have. When you’re so different from who you were the last time you were there—be it a day or ten years ago—that nothing feels right or normal or familiar anymore.

Sometimes people are more broken together than they could ever be apart.”

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.