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21 " The knot of wrongs sat against my heart day and night, and I didn’t know yet how to dislodge it. How to atone and begin to perhaps make things right. "
― Barbara O'Neal , The Lost Girls of Devon
22 " He regarded me silently for a long moment. “I could stay. Trounce you in a game of Mille Bornes?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or Yahtzee? "
23 " But did any of us end up where we wanted to be? "
24 " Magic isn’t evil,” I said. “That was simply a way for the church to take the power of women, who were the healers and wise women. "
25 " but the worst was the decline of my grandmother. In the dark of the car, I let myself shed a few tears of sorrow and helplessness. I was going to lose her, and there was not a single bloody thing I could do about it. "
26 " But how did you let people in if you knew they’d always leave you? "
27 " Breathe in suffering, breathe out peace. I took in the darkness, the heat of anger, my own and that in the world, and the sorrow, and the greed, and held it. "
28 " I imagined scrubbing the dark mass into something fresh and shiny, and exhaled, letting it go. "
29 " There are things you never get over. I closed my eyes for the space of a few breaths, letting it roll through me. Then I squared my shoulders and continued on. As one must. "
30 " Children don’t spend time trying to decide why their parents are unhappy, but parents think about their children all the time. "
31 " Happiness. I want to be happy again and feel like a normal person. I am tired of feeling scared and sick to my stomach all the time. I want to let go. "
32 " We’d been fighting, but I still loved her. The way you love a cousin you shared your childhood with, the way you love the children you grow up with, forever. "
33 " Like when my mom first started making me cook dinner, I found out that it was fun to plan meals. It makes me feel in control of the world to know what’s going to be for dinner. I like having that one thing at the end of the day that I can count on. As "
34 " The tears threatening, which would infuriate me. I took in a deep breath, trying to calm down, but there was a cold, furious anger at my core that I couldn’t shake. I turned around. “You’re right. I would have told you not to meet her because you might get hurt. She isn’t reliable. "
35 " How was it possible that after twenty years, that part of it was exactly the same? The chemistry between us was just as it had been when we were teenagers, probably the same as it had been all our lives. "
36 " The thought was soft, whispering through my mind, blowing away dust and debris to show me a vision of myself crouching at the edges of my life, fearful of losing even more if I stepped forward. "
37 " That’s what peace is—forgiveness. "