The Wishing Game: A Novel

Always be quiet when a heart is breaking.

Lucy seemed so happy losing herself in his sketchbook, smiling or laughing at every page. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be the reason behind the smile on a pretty girl’s face.

“God—or whoever is in charge of this planet—got drunk on the job one day and decided to give me the gift of writing. The way I see it, I have two choices. I can set that gift on a high shelf so it won’t get dinged up and nobody can make fun of me for playing with it.” He smiled until the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep enough to hide

The stories write us, you see. We read something that moves us, touches us, speaks to us and it…it changes us.”

“We tell people,” he said, “to follow their dreams. We tell them that they won’t be complete until they do, that they’ll be miserable until they start reaching for that brass ring. They never tell you how good it feels to give up on a dream. That it’s a…” “Relief?”