That I did keep writing novels after I failed,

“Good! I’d hate for my own daughter to think I was crazy,”

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted someone to get angry for me?

A crow cawed somewhere outside. They were perched in the dead oak, unsurprisingly. There was a certain kind of silence that permeated places of death.

didn’t hate you,” he clarified. “I was caught off guard. Here was a beautiful young woman declaring that romance was dead.” I shook my head. “I’m not that pretty, Ben.”

like the way they paint the world in this Technicolor dreamland, where the only rule you have to follow is a happily ever after. And I’ve spent most of my adult life chasing after that high.”

“I mean, I read Tolkien and played Dungeons & Dragons, if that’s any indication.”

He said that my words were so loud and so vivid and alive they could wake the dead.”

and for the first time—ever—he had to look up to meet my gaze,