“I rip my handout of hers, and I want to back away. I want to get as far from her as I can, but for some reason I can't move from this spot."What else did you tell him?”

“I don't know what I need, or even what I want, from her or from anybody. There's no way to tell her the truth, because the truth is that my heart is broken, and I don't think there''s any chance of it being sewn back together. This is permanent. It can't be fixed.”

“The clock is ticking. I should be leaving right now. But what I want to do is take Cicely in my arms and press her up against me hard enough to make her not care that I'm messing up her lipstick. I want to pick her up and carry her back through that doorway. We're only a few strides from the couch, only one rip away from ruining that expensive fabric, the dress she must have bought to wear for him.”

“I couldn't remember if I thanked you for what you did," I tell her. "And I can't get you out of my head.”

“What do you want, Christian?”What did I want? To make her smile, to wipe away her tears, to hold her. To be a father, a real father, not one in title, but on who’d earned that right. I wanted to stay. “I want my family,” I forced through the lump in my throat.”

“I want to tell her that the only thing you get from walling yourself in is empty.”