“There was once a spirited feral mustang broken in by her stern rider. It was a harmonious relationship for the most part but, like any relationship, she tested the boundaries he placed on her and threw him…Would the rider, having suffered his own wound, retaliate, discipline or forgive?”

“People change us. It is a rare, if not an impossible occurrence, that we come out of relationships unscathed. In our dealings with people we take something with us and we leave something behind. Some people are haunted more than others, either by the sweet perfume of another or the stink of regret.”

“Even “meant to be” takes work.”

“I thought I would prefer apathy over this,” I confided to her. “Why?” she asked. “Are you saying you would rather be cold than comforted? He’s looking at you and offering his hand in friendship and you’re rudely looking away pretending not to notice. At least with him you wouldn’t be so alone.” I felt my eyes turn into colorless pools as I glared at her for stating the obvious. “Being numb to someone is better than feeling something,” I explained. “Safer you mean,” she interrupted. I sighed and continued, “When someone who was once significant in your life comes back after an extended absence, emotions you had finally freed yourself from are reawakened, and if that’s not enough to contend with, dormant memories are summoned whether you want them to be or not.” “And what is it that you want?” she posed triumphantly. I swallowed my anger and thought with defeat, “Nothing anyone can give me.”

“Connecting with someone is not necessarily a bond with a significant other, or even a friend, but can be the indefinable – perhaps the rarest and most precious thing in life to find at all.”

“We love because we can lose. If there was no threat of separation, no death to shake us to our core, we probably wouldn’t love much at all.”

“Underneath the sky, so void of light, the rain soaked me through. I held on to the railing and felt calm, even content, and then he had to reach through the dark, raise my temperature and make my heart beat a little bit faster. Not very gallant I should say…especially so close to bedtime. Friend or not, should he rob me of sleep, I’ll be sure to take his.”

“Darling, if I take your breath away, I will give you mine.”

“There is the purity of love, harmonious in every way, but not meant for a lifetime, and then there is the steady love of commitment – no less real but completely different. She had both.”

“I think anyone who opened their heart enough to love without restraint and subsequently were devastated by loss knows that in that moment you are forever changed; a apart of you is no longer whole. Some will never again love with that level of abandon where life is perceived as innocent and the threat of loss seems implausible. Love and loss, therefore, are linked.”

“Truth and integrity must be so rare these days that it confuses people when they hear it.”