Nicole Williams

When you find someone you want to spend forever with you, you don't let them go, whether forever turns out to be a day or a year of fifty years. Don't let the fear of losing them keep you from loving them.

Caring for someone is scary, because you both know how it feels to lose someone in the span of a heartbeat.

That's enough!" Holly scrambled out of her seat, too. "My three-year-old behaves better than all of you." She looked down at LJ, who was trying to stuff a fry up his nostril. "And that's not saying a whole lot.

Because I don__ want to give you any reason to be mad at me. I don__ want to give you a reason to hate me because, as much as I might have have begged you to do that, you__e the single most important thing in the world to me, Charlie Chase. You__e become my world. And how do I live in a world where you don__ exist?

I__ a realist,_ I said. __ying and making promises about forever is almost as bad as one day at a time.

I could hold you prisoner here for the rest of the day and list everything I love about you, but that__ only half of it,_ he explained, turning toward me. __he other half is something I can__ put into words. Something I don__ think I__l ever be able to. It__ something that ties me to you, and you to me. Call it chemistry, call it fate, call it whatever you want. All I know is that I__ yours just as much as you__e mine, Luce. That__ the surest thing I__e ever known.

Hi, I__ Jude Ryder Jamieson,_ he began, extending his hand. I took it, shaking it. He held onto it when I tried to pull it back. __y mom left when I was thirteen. My dad__ serving a life sentence for killing a young kid. I spent the last five years in a boys_ home being bullied, beat, and abused by the kids, the staff, and even the goddamn dog. I sold drugs. I did drugs. I got arrested. A lot. I screwed a lot of faceless women._ He paused, sucking in a breath. __nd then I met one whose face I couldn__ forget. I fell in love with her. I hurt her because I fell in love with her and was afraid she was going to leave me the way everyone else had._ He lifted his other hand, cradling mine between his. __ still love her.

...and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god__, somewhere__, handiwork.

I didn't know silence could be that loud.

I try to keep the happy memories. If that's what you call selective memories, I'm good with that.