A Pessimist's Guide to Love (Heartsong, #2)

by Jennifer Hartmann

spectrum of love is a lot like the color spectrum. What is love but a distribution of pigment and feelings when light is dispersed.

This house is Cal, this house is me, this house is anybody who’s ever been beaten down and dragged through the mud. We all deserve to be polished and restored, and this little house isn’t any different.

What I’m starting to realize is that things meant to happen are just going to happen. There’s no preparing, no preventing. They just happen. And the risks we take, the memories we make, are the only things that count. That’s all that matters. Everything else is going to happen anyway.

But here’s the thing—we’re all dying. Every damn one of us. And the whole point of life is to live while we’re still alive—that’s the point.

I haven’t had anything to drink all week, not since the night she wandered into my bedroom and tangled our limbs together and pressed her heart to mine as if she were my home.

“Home is something I buried a long time ago,” he tells me, voice cracking with sentiment. A breath passes between us, a drumbeat. And then he whispers, “But I buried it inside you. Just in case I ever wanted to go back.”

I suppose, though, when someone hurts another person, they lose all say in the recovery process. They give up their share of control. And that’s fair. It’s heart wrenching, but fair.