I’d promised myself that I’d really work on talking more, talking about uncomfortable things, because I could see from Brian how well things could work out if you did.

Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase "happily ever after." Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.

I’d promised myself that I’d really work on talking more, talking about uncomfortable things, because I could see from Brian how well things could work out if you did.

How could I pretend to be someone else when I was already failing at being the person I already was?

I ultimately decided to hold my tongue and settle instead for the comfort of ignorance. Not knowing the truth, I retained hope, and that hope I held like a smooth warm stone against my heart.

And have your mother put my head on a stake? Do you have any notion what that would do to my handsome good looks?

That which is priceless has no cost.