“There’s nothing he can do here for me, but I hate that he left.”

“He's never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme.”

“There’s a hollow where he used to be, and it echoes with self-imposed loss.”

“There’s a reason I hate jigsaw puzzles. I don’t have the patience to find all the border pieces, especially when they’re all the same shade of gray.”

“For I need this scar over my heart to remind me. Crazy as it sounds, if I can bear the wound on my body, it lessens what I must carry on my soul. How he knew that about me, I cannot fathom.”

“I swept down the stairs to find Fade waiting for me at the bottom. His dark eyes widened, and for the first time since I'd known him, he was speechless. He stared up at me like I was everything he ever wanted.”

“He has to take me as I am, broken bits and all.”