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41 " I was thirty, not sixteen, I had told myself. I had a grandpa, a Peter, a Luna, a sister of a Luna, a Ripley, a Cooper couple. I had friends. I had been raised by a village, and my daughter was and would be too. "
― Mariana Zapata , The Best Thing
42 " don’t make up for everything you would leave behind, but I would try my best, Lenny. I would try my best every day if you’d consider it. "
43 " Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. One of my coaches had told me once that those were the most pointless set of words in the world. But you learn to live with them, you learn from them, or you let them weigh you down for life. "
44 " It wouldn’t have been cheating because we weren’t together.’ ‘We weren’t together?’ He taunted me in another whisper, that hand on my neck inching up to cup my jaw as I continued resisting looking in his direction. ‘Is that what you’ve been telling yourself? From the second we met, we were only apart when I had to train or I was gone with the team, or when you had to coach. We slept in the same bed together more than we did apart after those first two weeks,’ he told me, like I hadn’t been there. Like I didn’t know. How could I forget? And when I went to suck in a breath, it was harder than normal. So much fucking harder. ‘I still sleep on the left side of the bed even with you, Lenny. "
45 " A year ago, when I’d been having a really bad night, I’d looked Jonah Ho-bag Collins up online, and in the process, found a list of the twenty-two sexiest rugby players in the world. "
46 " I love the gym, loved running it, loved having you there with me all the time. I love Peter being there. But it’s just a business, Len. It’s four walls and some concrete that could disappear in a day, in a flood, in a hurricane or a tornado. It’s a part of me, you, and Peter, but it’s not everything.” He reached up to wipe under his eye with the side of his index finger. “Some people are lucky to find one person in the world to love. Some people are even luckier to find more than one person to love and be loved back. Some don’t find anyone. If you find someone, you don’t let them run away. We love them the way we need to love them. The way they need to be loved. And we don’t give up on that. We don’t throw that kind of thing away or push it to a better time, because there is no better time. If you love that kid the way you say you do, you don’t give that up. You fight for it, you stick with it, and you go for it. You keep it. "