The Wall of Winnipeg and Me Quotes

“I don't know," I stuttered, "Do you love me?"
His gaze was so intent the entire world seemed to stop. "You tell me. I never stop thinking about you. I worry about you all the time. Every beautiful thing I see reminds me of you. I can't finish my practices in Colorado with out wishing you were around," he said in a steady tone. "You tell me what I feel.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I'm starting to understand that you can always make time for the things that matter.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“What no one tells you is that the road to accomplishing your goals isn’t a straight line; it looks more like a corn maze. You stopped, you went, you backed up, and took a few wrong turns along the way, but the important thing you had to remember was that there was an exit. Somewhere.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“When life gives you lemons, you get to choose what you make out of them; it doesn’t always have to be lemonade.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“That’s my girl. That’s my fucking girl.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Home is where you are. I would go anywhere for you if you wanted me there.”
― Mariana Zapata , The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“The only people in the world who can hurt you are those you let have that ability, Van.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“What if everyone hates me and no one talks to me? What if someone throws something at me?” Aiden snorted, setting the shirt he’d been holding aside and picking up the next one on the pile. “What are they going to throw? Bookmarks?”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Because every relationship will end up one of two ways: you’ll end up breaking up, or you end up marrying the person. And I don’t like wasting my time.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“When I was a kid, I learned the hard way how expensive the truth was. Sometimes it cost you people in your life. Sometimes it cost you things in your life. And in this life, most people were too cheap to pay the price for something as valuable as honesty.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Life was all about choices. You chose what to make out of what you had. And I wasn’t going to let it make me its bitch. I could be a mature adult who knew her limits. I could be a good person. Maybe not all the time, but enough.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I had a temper. I got angry easily. But I had made myself learn how to control it. I had decided early on that I wasn’t going to let that emotion define me. I wanted to be better. I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to be someone—not necessarily someone great or someone important—but someone I could live with.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I thought broken things couldn’t help but love other broken things.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I would have done just about anything for you back then, even when you got on my nerves. I might have just waited until the last minute to push you out of oncoming traffic, but I’d still push you out of the way.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I was going to murder his ass. One day. One day long after I quit, so no one would suspect me.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Like football and art, like anything that anyone in the world has ever wanted, love was a dream. And just like a dream, there were no assurances behind it. It didn’t grow on its own. It didn’t blossom without food to feed it. It was the greatest in its subtleties. It was the strongest in its selflessness. And it could be forever with someone who wasn’t afraid to never give up on the possibilities it presents.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“But I can't remember anymore what it's like to not be happy.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“GO BACK TO DALLAS!” the man sitting somewhere behind us yelled again, and the hold Aiden still had on the back of my neck tightened imperceptibly.

“Don’t bother, Van,” he demanded, pokerfaced.

“I’m not going to say anything,” I said, even as I reached up with the hand furthest away from him and put it behind my head, extending my middle finger in hopes that the idiot yelling would see it.

Those brown eyes blinked. “You just flipped him off, didn’t you?”

Yeah, my mouth dropped open. “How do you know when I do that?” My tone was just as astonished as it should be.

“I know everything.” He said it like he really believed it.

I groaned and cast him a long look. “You really want to play this game?”

“I play games for a living, Van.”

I couldn’t stand him sometimes. My eyes crossed in annoyance. “When is my birthday?”

He stared at me.

“See?”

“March third, Muffin.”

What in the hell?

“See?” he mocked me.

Who was this man and where was the Aiden I knew?

“How old am I?” I kept going hesitantly.

“Twenty-six.”

“How do you know this?” I asked him slowly.

“I pay attention,” The Wall of Winnipeg stated.

I was starting to think he was right.

Then, as if to really seal the deal I didn’t know was resting between us, he said, “You like waffles, root beer, and Dr. Pepper. You only drink light beer. You put cinnamon in your coffee. You eat too much cheese. Your left knee always aches. You have three sisters I hope I never meet and one brother. You were born in El Paso. You’re obsessed with your work. You start picking at the corner of your eye when you feel uncomfortable or fool around with your glasses. You can’t see things up close, and you’re terrified of the dark.” He raised those thick eyebrows. “Anything else?”

Yeah, I only managed to say one word. “No.” How did he know all this stuff? How? Unsure of how I was feeling, I coughed and started to reach up to mess with my glasses before I realized what I was doing and snuck my hand under my thigh, ignoring the knowing look on Aiden’s dumb face. “I know a lot about you too. Don’t think you’re cool or special.”

“I know, Van.” His thumb massaged me again for all of about three seconds. “You know more about me than anyone else does.”

A sudden memory of the night in my bed where he’d admitted his fear as a kid pecked at my brain, relaxing me, making me smile. “I really do, don’t I?”

The expression on his face was like he was torn between being okay with the idea and being completely against it.

Leaning in close to him again, I winked. “I’m taking your love of MILF porn to the grave with me, don’t worry.”

He stared at me, unblinking, unflinching. And then: “I’ll cut the power at the house when you’re in the shower,” he said so evenly, so crisply, it took me a second to realize he was threatening me…

And when it finally did hit me, I burst out laughing, smacking his inner thigh without thinking twice about it. “Who does that?”

Aiden Graves, husband of mine, said it, “Me.”

Then the words were out of my mouth before I could control them. “And you know what I’ll do? I’ll go sneak into bed with you, so ha.”

What the hell had I just said? What in the ever-loving hell had I just said?

“If you think I’m supposed to be scared…” He leaned forward so our faces were only a couple of inches away. The hand on my neck and the finger pads lining the back of my ear stayed where they were. “I’m not”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Ovaries. Where were my ovaries?”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I need a friend—I need you.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Touch my wife again, and I’ll break every bone in your goddamn body.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“I don’t know anything about relationships, Van, but I know I love you. I know I’ve waited my entire life to love you, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make this work.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“The only people in the world who can hurt you are those you let have that ability”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“He was lucky I had a tiny, itty, bitty crush on him; otherwise, he would have gotten the shank years ago. Then”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“It was right then, in that instant, that I realized I might be a little in love with Aiden. Not in a way that was anything like the easy crush I had on him in the past, but different. So, so different.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“His forehead tipped forward, and before I could react, before he said another word to me, he leaned forward, forward, forward and pressed his mouth just to the side of my mouth. A peck. A shot better than tequila, made up of friendship and affection and organic sugar.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Oh, I’d heard him. Loud and clear. That was why I wanted to kill him.
Which basically showed how amazing the human mind was; how you could care about someone but want to slit his or her throat at the same time. Like having a sister who you wanted to punch right in the ovaries. You still loved her, you just wanted to sock her right in the baby-maker to teach her a lesson—not that I knew from experience or anything.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Vanessa…” He trailed off with a frown.

The next three sentences we shared between the two of us were going to be the last thing I thought about when I went to bed later that night.

“You’ve been with me for two years, but I figure I’m barely beginning to understand,” the big guy claimed, his expression solemn.

“Understand what?”

“I should probably be scared of you.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Extra money? I never said no to extra money. Unless it required a blowjob.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

“Because that was the way surprises worked—they didn’t tend to pencil themselves in to your schedule and let you know they were visiting ahead of time.”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me