How do you. . . un-hate . . . someone you’ve hated all your life? How, Manel?” Her eyes were sad and full of tears. “You just. . . do, Ricco. You just do. There’s no other way around it, except. . . doing it.

She was like the moon illuminating the darkness of the night, her radiance dousing the eclipse in his mind, filling it with her light.

I will continue doing it, even if it takes a lifetime. Because I love her. I love her enough to look past the horror of what was done to her and cast my eyes forward, rebuilding our future.

She was her own woman; has been and always will be. Never mind that her heart was torn into shreds and wouldn’t stop bleeding, yearning for him after everything he’s done.

She finally came to understand that fear is a curious thing. It can make one hide and scurry away from the object of fear. But it can also give a person courage and strength. Courage to face the very thing you’re afraid of, and the strength to conquer it.

She saw it now. He needed her. Not her body, not for pleasure. But her presence, her strength, her character. He really, truly needed her. And she loved the feeling of being needed by him. Providing him with what only she can give him: her strength, her positivity, her self. She knew she made him happy, and him being happy made her happy, too. Her own happiness was intertwined with his. Just like his misery. When she hurt him with her words, she inflicted herself with the same pain.

You’re not running around. You’re running away, as you’d always done.

You can let go now. Please let go. I will see you in your dreams and I will delight in knowing that a part of your heart, however small, will be yearning for me.

He expected me to die that night. I didn’t.I will not die now.

All I heard was the sound of my own heart.Beating, but not breathing.Alive, but not living.Whole, but fatally broken.