Alice started to cry. It came with no sound, no shuddering, no childlike hysterics, just a soul-deep release that turned into moisture and dripped down her puffy pink cheeks. She touched her tears, frowning. Then she looked up at Julia and whimpered two words before she fell asleep. ‘Real hurts.’

We can't live other people's lives for them. Even if we love them.

She had been ready to love this man from the moment she first saw him. In all these years, that had never changed. They'd hurt each other, let each other down, and yet, here they were after everything, together. She needed him now, needed him to remind her that she was live, that she wasn't alone, that she hadn't lost everything.

Some stories don't have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.

And before you barrel through some idiotic Cosmo girl list of how-well-do-you-know-your-man questions, let me say that I don't know squat about him except that he kisses like a god and screws like a devil.

It isn’t about being at the same school or the same town or even the same room. It’s about being together. Love is a choice you make.

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.