What are you going to do? What do you want to do?” she prompted. “I’m going to go try to help Niall. He’s not acting like himself, and I have a theory on what’s wrong,” he told her. “Then afterward I'm going to ask you to marry me.

but it's not always as set as that. Some things, though, feel like they're right. You and me? It's one of those things. I don't know why they see or why things are such a mess, but in the middle of it all, I do know that being around you is one of tue best things that happened to me in, well, ever.

She turned so they were face-to-face and gave him back the words he'd offered her their first night together: "I survived. Isn't that what matters?

He'd given her his vow: to take care of her, to keep her from hurt or pain, from wanting for anything. Her leaving didn't negate his promises; they weren't conditional.

Talking won't change it. But sometimes it was what she wanted most, to tell someone; often, though, she just wanted to escape those horrid feelings, to escape herself, so there was no pain, no fear, no ugliness.

How was I to know? ... You didn't say anything.""I said lots of things," he corrected gently. "You just didn't hear them.

I eventually realized that good things wouldnt happen to me if I didnt make the right choices.