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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Rebecca Ross
Read between
December 20, 2023 - February 20, 2024
“Not exactly. More like loving someone you’ve never met. Someone whose name you don’t even know but who you have a connection with.”
“These days, I think anything is possible, Iris.”
Carver.
“Little flower.” I see it now. The name suits you.
iris: transitive verb: to make iridescent.
I want her to know it’s me,
You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel.
He was ready to write his own story.
I don’t think you realize how strong you are, because sometimes strength isn’t swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it’s found in quiet, gentle places. The way you hold someone’s hand as they grieve. The way you listen to others. The way you show up, day after day, even when you are weary or afraid or simply uncertain.
It was Roman Confounded Kitt.
His hands reached for her as she reached for him, and the stillness broke when they touched, as if they had cracked the world.
“It’s good to see you again too, Winnow.”
“I personally like divine,”
“I don’t want you to go without me, Winnow.”
She unfortunately had to sit on Roman Kitt’s lap, nearly all the way to the front lines.
The last thing in the world she wanted was for Roman Chafing Kitt to know she was magically corresponding with a boy she had never met but felt sparks for.
I want to know everything about you, Iris. I want to know your hopes and your dreams. I want to know
Roman Kitt was a mystery. A mystery she was tempted to solve.
That was what he was absently thinking about—his gratitude for the wind, Iris, his future articles, Iris, how much longer until sundown, Iris—when the blasts came, rupturing the quiet, blue-skyed afternoon.
She had to carry those words back home. She had to live through this so she could type it out.
She has to survive this, Roman thought. He didn’t want to live in a world without her and her words.
If anything hurt her, it would have to come through him first.
She couldn’t bear to live in a world without him.
“You should take my bag and go. Leave me here.” “Like hell I am!”
She and Roman would survive this war. They would have the chance to grow old together, year by year. They would be friends until they both finally acknowledged the truth. And they would have everything that other couples had—the arguments and the hand-holding in the market and the gradual exploration of their bodies and the birthday celebrations and the journeys to new cities and the living as one and sharing a bed and the gradual sense of melting into each other. Their names would be entwined—Roman and Iris or Winnow and Kitt because could you truly have one without the other?—and they would
...more
She wanted him. Leaving him behind in the trenches wasn’t even a possibility.
“If you die in this trench,” Iris said, “then I die with you.
“I’m needed elsewhere, but I’ll find you, Kitt. When this is over, I’ll find you,
“You and I … we need to stay together. We’re better this way.”
“I’ll find you,”
“Then he must be here because of you,” the nurse said, moving closer to take his pulse. “I’m sure he’ll want to see and personally thank you tomorrow.” “No,” Iris said. “I’m here because of him.”
A transcendent connection. A divine threshold.
your letters have been a light for me to follow. Your words? A sublime feast that fed me on days when I was starving. I love you, Iris.
Roman Kitt was Carver.
“The C is for Carver,” Roman said, leaning closer to her. “My name is Roman Carver Kitt.”
He wove his fingers into her hair and brought his mouth down to hers. Iris felt the shock ripple through her the moment their lips met. His kiss was hungry, as if he had longed to taste her for some time, and at first she couldn’t breathe. But then the shock melted, and she felt a thrill warm her blood.
I am coming to love him, in two different ways. Face to face, and word to word.
I’m afraid he’s going to hurt me. I’m afraid to lose someone I love again.
He found me on my darkest day. He followed me to war, to the front lines. He came between me and Death, taking wounds that were supposed to be mine.
I am so afraid. And yet how I long to be vulnerable and brave when it comes to my own heart.
“I was thinking we could go to our hill.”
“If I tell you anything else today, you’ll grow tired of me.” “Impossible,” he whispered.
I broke my engagement, quit my job, and traveled six hundred kilometers into war-torn land to be with you, Iris.”
“But the moment you walked away,” Roman rushed on, “I knew I felt something for you, which I had been denying for weeks. The moment you wrote me and said you were six hundred kilometers away from Oath … I thought my heart had stopped. To know that you would still want to write to me, but also that you were so far away. And as our letters progressed, I finally acknowledged that I was in love with you, and I wanted you to know who I was. That’s when I decided I would follow you. I didn’t want the life my father had planned for me—a life where I could never be with you.”
You and I … we need to stay together. We’re better this way.
He was choosing her.
“Marry me, Iris Elizabeth Winnow,” Roman whispered, drawing back to look at her. “I want to spend all my days and all my nights with you. Marry me.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you, Roman Carver Kitt.”
“Let’s work together.”
“I wasn’t about to let you die.”
