Home > Work > What He Doesn't Know (What He Doesn't Know, #1)
1 " I learned the people we love usually turned out to be one of three things: a home, a holiday, or hell.” — Beau Taplin "
― Kandi Steiner , What He Doesn't Know (What He Doesn't Know, #1)
2 " No one is the same once they lose someone they love. "
3 " Books aren’t meant to be in perfect shape,” she said when we reached her room. “They’re meant to be read, to be inhaled like oxygen.” Her fingers ran over the spine again, and she smiled. “This book has been breathed. It’s been loved. "
4 " Death changes us. It takes everything we thought we knew about our lives and fast pitches it out the window, shattering the glass in the process. Wind whips in, hard and cold, and throws everything we’d had neatly in place flying around the room. No one is the same once they lose someone they love. They just have to learn to exist in the new world, no matter how messy it is. "
5 " When I heard certain songs, they transported me to another time, to another place, and sometimes, to another person. "
6 " If I am a river, you are the ocean. It all comes back to you in the end. "
7 " A touch. A sigh. A man. A woman. Fingertips and lips. Moans and breaths. Old longings brought to life with new fervor, new discoveries uncovered with old, shaking hands. Freedom. Passion. Pain. "
8 " But me and Charlie? We were magic. We were made for each other, plain and simple. "
9 " the simple truth is that I can’t not be with you anymore. I came to you because you made me forget I have a choice. I came to you because it’s always been you, "
10 " I hadn’t been a good husband. I’d buried myself in work to try to forget about our boys instead of remembering them the way I should have. In turn, I’d found myself with more responsibilities at work than ever before, simply because I never said no. I’d left my wife at home to grieve alone, without her partner, without the one who loves her more than anyone. I’d been forgetful and selfish. "
11 " But I knew Charlie. I loved her — truly loved her — not for who she used to be or whatever fantasy Reese had of her in his head. I’d seen her sick. I’d danced with her on her best days and helped her stand on the days she couldn’t bear the thought of it. I’d built a home with her, built a life with her, and neither hell nor high water could keep me from keeping the vows I’d made to her the day we were married. "
12 " Those marks on your stomach, while they are forever a part of you, they do not define you. They are not a sign of your weakness or of your failure.” I smiled then, rubbing the pad of my thumb along her cheek. “They are a reminder of your strength, of your love, and of the miracle of life. "
13 " It was just a normal Monday. Until it wasn’t. "
14 " Charlie Reid was married, she was Charlie Pierce now, and still, it didn’t matter. I loved her, anyway. "
15 " she didn’t attempt to fix the splitting of my soul. She only crawled into the fault line with me, giving me company in the hollow loneliness of it all. "
16 " But if I was a river, and he was the ocean, then Cameron was the storm that raged over the point where we met. And lightning was about to strike. "
17 " It was me, after all, who had shown my wife the dance, the moves, the steps and turns of infidelity. It was me who’d betrayed her first. And it was my fault she was in his bed right now. "
18 " The house was once magical, once filled with love and joy and plans for the future. It was entirely too big for the young newlyweds who purchased it, both eager to fill the spare bedrooms with babies, to fill the expansive kitchen with little footprints and messy high chairs, to fill the walls with memories captured in sepia-tone photographs. "
19 " I learned the people we love usually turned out to be one of three things: a home, a holiday, or hell. "
20 " I’d been at the bar all night, ever since she left. I’d sat there at the very last bar stool, staring at my hands, fighting the urge to call her phone, knowing she wouldn’t answer — knowing I wouldn’t have the right words to say even if she did. I never had the right words. My voice had been stolen by an abusive father before I hit middle school, and I’d struggled my entire life trying to find it again. "