Last Call at the Local (Love, Lists & Fancy Ships, #3)

by Sarah Grunder Ruiz

And to you, dear reader. You deserve every good thing, even when you’re having dark thoughts. You deserve to be happy, even when you aren’t well. And love—you deserve that too.

He takes almost everything seriously. Whereas I treat every interaction as if it’s some sort of game. Probably because everything feels like a game to me. On bad days, it feels like a game with nonsensical rules. Rules I know don’t actually have consequences, but rules I have to follow nonetheless. It’s exhausting.

but the problem with a brain like mine is that whenever I try not to think about something, the more it boomerangs back into my head, especially if it is something I shouldn’t or don’t want to think about.

“Aithníonn ciaróg, ciaróg eile,” he says. “It’s an Irish proverb. Roughly translated, it means, One beetle recognizes another.”

His eyes roam my face before meeting mine again, and the way he looks at me makes my chest ache. He wipes the tears from beneath my eyes, then cradles my face in his hands. “How can you think you’re too much, when I can’t get enough of you?”

You deserve every good thing, even when you’re having dark thoughts. You deserve to be happy, even when you aren’t well.