Things We Hide from the Light (Knockemout, #2)

by Lucy Score

Everyone was alive and breathing. Everyone but me. I was just pretending.

But part of me had died in that ditch that night, and what was left didn’t seem like it was worth fighting for.

“Small towns are where busy professional women get seduced by a rough-around-the-edges local business owner. Ooh! Or a sheriff. Have you met the sheriff yet?”

“Your gun is digging into me.” “That’s not my gun,” I said through clenched teeth. Her mouth curved wickedly. “I know.” “Then stop moving.”

“If you tell people what you want instead of askin’ them for it, you’re more likely to get what you want,” he said.

“Feel like I’ve been waiting for Daze and Way my entire life. I’d go to the courthouse tonight if I could talk them into it.”

“Let’s go! You can rest when you’re dead,” Mrs. Tweedy bellowed.

“I moved on, but my parents didn’t. I guess there’s something about seeing your only child nearly die in front of your eyes that changes a parent. So they worry. Still. Chalk that one up in the Things We Never Got Over column.”

Whenever you’re close, everything is better. The closer you are, the easier I breathe, the less I feel like life is just a never-ending pour of lemon juice into an open wound that won’t heal. You take away the dark, the cold. And you remind me what it’s like to want to be here.”

“He’s gonna be mad. But mad means he cares,” I told him.

“I just wish I woulda kept trying to look to the light instead of sinking into the dark,” he said. “A man can learn to live in that dark, but it’s no life.”

“Friends make friends better. We accept the bad parts, celebrate the good parts, and we don’t torture you for your mistakes,” Naomi said.

“I know you don’t like to be touched, and I respect that,” Sloane said. “But I think you should know that I’m hugging you in my mind.”

“However, unpopular opinion here. You’re not responsible for how you were brought up, but you are responsible for your actions and reactions once you’re an adult.”

“Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you trust yourself to be strong enough to handle the hurt. It’s actually the purest form of strength.”

“Nobody is good at it at first. No one has a natural talent for being in a relationship. Everyone has to learn how to be good at it. It takes a lot of practice and forgiveness and vulnerability.”

“You can’t take responsibility for another adult’s bad decisions,” Nash told her. His gaze shifted to me. “All you can do is try to make good ones for yourself.”