“You told me i was your world.It wasn't me. I was an animal." My heart pounded. My cheeks burned. You never wanted it to end. "Why are you being such a jackass, slamming me in the face with my own humiliation?"Humilation? That's what you call this? He forced a more detailed reminder on me. I swallowed. Yes, I certainly remembered that. "I was out of my mind. I‘d never have done it otherwise." Really, his dark eyes mocked, and in them I was demanding more, telling him I wanted it to always be this way. I remembered what he'd replied: that one day I would wonder if it was possible to hate him more.”
“He acted like he didn't hear me. "He will let you down, because that's what he does. That's who he is." For the rest of my life, I was going to remember those words. Everything Jeremiah said to me that day, our wedding day, I would remember. I would remember the words Jeremiah said and the way he looked at me with them. With pity, and with bitterness. I hated myself for being the one who made him bitter, because that was one thing he'd never been. I reached up and laid my palm on his cheek. He could have pushed my hand away, he could have recoiled at my touch. He didn't. Just that one tiny thing told me what I needed to know - that Jere was still Jere and nothing could ever change that.”
“Listen Chica-" Carlos says when we're driving to my mom's store"don't call me that anymore" I tell him"what do you want me to call you, then?" I shrug "whatever. Just not Chica"Carlos holds his hand up "what do you want me from me? You want me to tell you lies? Okay. Kara, without you i'm nothin'. Kara, you own my heart and soul. Kara,, i love you. Is that what you to hear?"yes""No guy who actually says those things really mean them""I bet your brother says them to Brittney and means them""that's because he's lost all common sense. I though you the one girl who didn't fall for my bull""I don't. Consider my wanting you as my real boyfriend a lapse of judgement," I tell him "But i'm over it”
“You remember what else I said to you that day in the drawing room,” he said. “I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness. I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that. It is unfair to tell you this, I know, when you can do nothing about it.” He took a shuddering breath. “How you must despise me.”
“Auggie said you were too sentimental for your own good sometimes."Out loud he said, "Perhaps, but you have taught me that sentiment is not always a bad thing."I stared up at that impossibly beautiful face, and felt love swell up inside me like a physical force. It filled my body, swelling upward until it made my chest ache, my throat tighten, and my eyes burn. It sounded so stupid. But I loved him. Loved all of him, but loved him more because loving me had made him better. That he would say that I had taught him about being sentimental made me want to cry. Richard reminded me at every turn that I was bloodthirsty and cold. If that were true, then I couldn't have taught Jean-Claude about sentimentality. You can't learn, if you don't have it to teach.He kissed me. He kissed me softly, with one hand lost in the hair to the side of my face. He drew back and whispered, "I never thought to see that look upon your face, not for me.""I love you," I said, and touched his hand where it lay against my face.”
“I hated and admired this hunter. I once gave him my heart and soul. Since then, I had given him more and more of myself, but I never forgot his true nature and what he had done to me.”