“He gave me lies, and for him, I closed my eyes.”
“opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one, and they usually stink.”
“He gave me lies, and I ate them from the palm of his hand.
He gave me lies, and for him, I closed my eyes”
“Real love was cancer. All it took was one blink, and it would spread inside you like wildfire and consume you. But that was okay, because I had a feeling that unlike cancer, real love didn’t die. Ever.”
“Dear future wife…” He smirked in a way that made me want to beg for mercy. “If you think you’re going to give me trouble, think again. I invented trouble. I stir it, I mix it, I fucking fix it. Don’t try my patience, because you’ll discover I have absolutely none.”
“destiny will find a way to get you two back together. Real love doesn’t disappear. It can turn into hate, and hate can turn into love, but those feelings won’t ever turn into indifference.”
“Fear is a prison, and in prison you played by different rules to survive.”
“He took a step closer, his breath falling on my face. “You can do whatever the fuck you want. You have a long leash.”
“Buying her shit only pissed her off, and trust me, I’d had my people filling her wardrobe with designer shoes and dresses. She gave them all away to the homeless shelter down the street like they weren’t worth a dime. In fact, there’s a crazy homeless woman in downtown Boston walking around in a Stella McCartney suit and a pair of Jimmy Choo’s, yelling at traffic lights that she was the real Messiah. Yeah.”
“For you, I’ll stop the rain from falling and the thunder from cracking and the wind from fucking blowing. And”
“She was a blank, clean, white sheet for me to scribble on. And I scribbled. On her lips, on her jaw, her neck and collarbone. I jotted my hunger for her in vivid colors as”
“this was life. That sometimes you were Batman…and sometimes, the Joker. Flynn”
“The sparrow is associated with freedom. At one time, sailors got a tattoo of a sparrow for every five thousand nautical miles they traveled. Sparrows were believed to bring good luck. Sometimes the sailor got his sparrow tattoo even before leaving the docks, hoping it would act as a talisman and help bring him safely home again.”
“Is it possible to feel your heart breaking, even when you’re falling in love?” I”
“I wanted this wedding like a bad case of gonorrhea.”
“It’s going to hurt like a motherfucker,” he warned. “Of course it will.” I smiled into our kiss, my lips still glued to his. “Everything with you does.” He”
“Troy Brennan was the devil, but sometimes, even good girls wanted a healthy dose of evil in their lives. He’d”
“I’m saying that if I can’t eat it, fuck it or kill it I have no interest in it,”
“I hated liking her. In a sense, it was like handing her the keys to the pit of my soul while she was tanked as hell and telling her to drive carefully.”
“While I watched her cook, I suddenly realized it was her art. The pan was her canvas, the ingredients her paint. She cooked with fire in her eyes, with passion in her soul, with love in her heart.”
“The harder I fought back every time he messed with me, the more he liked me. I bet if I set his penthouse on fire, he would laugh like it was all a big, fat joke. “Hell,”
“I buried my face in the pillow to muffle my moans. “This is…” I could barely speak. “This is…” “This is your G-spot.” He bit my earlobe from behind. “Nice to meet ya.” I”
“Troy was the guy who not only broke your headboard, but also broke your heart.”
“Guilt was a thief. It would steal your mind, mess with your priorities and would eventually steer you from your original plan. I”
“I was vengeance and hate, fury and wrath.”
“Yes, Troy Brennan was one hell of a sociopath, and he didn’t bother disguising his nature and putting on a mask when he faced the world.”
“I fucking love you, Red.”
“I fucking love you, Brennan.”
“He did atrocious things, but it was him I wanted. Always, only him.
Troy stopped when we were nose to nose. Toe to toe. I loved watching those eyes from up-close. They were so ocean blue, no wonder they made my head swim.
“I love you, Red. I love you determined, tough, innocent, resilient…” His brows furrowed as he drank me in, stroking the curve of my face with his calloused fingertips. “I love you broken, insecure, scared, furious and pissed off…” He let a small smile loose.
I actually felt it, even though it was on his lips.
“I love every part of you, the good and the bad, the hopeless and the assertive. We don’t just love. We heal each other with every touch and complete each other with ever kiss. And fuck, I know it’s corny as hell, but that’s what I need. You’re what I need.”
My eyes fluttered shut, a lone tear hanging from the tip of my eyelash.
“We don’t have ordinary words between us. You always set my fucking brain on fire when you talk to me. We don’t even have ordinary moments of silence. I always feel like I’m playing with you or being played by you when you’re around. And I refuse to let you walk out on this, on us.”
He cupped my cheeks and I locked his palms in place, tightening my grip. I never wanted him to let go. He dipped his head down, tilting his forehead against mine. I knew he was right. Knew that I’d already forgiven him. Probably before I even knew what he did, when we were still living together. Hell, probably on that dance floor, when I was nine.
My capturer.
My monster.
My savior.
“I’m an asshole, was an asshole, and have every intention of staying an asshole. It’s the makeup of my fucking DNA. But I want to be your asshole. To you, I can be good. Maybe even great. For you, I’ll stop the rain from falling and the thunder from cracking and the wind from fucking blowing. And yes, I sure as hell knew you’d come back. You came straight back into my arms, flew back to your nest, lovebird. Now why would you do that if you didn’t love the shit out of me?”
My eyes roamed his face. His hands felt delicious on my skin. It was like he was pumping life into me with his fingertips. Like he made me whole before I even knew parts of me were missing.”
“it was violent and needy. It was a cancer, spreading inside my body, multiplying into hundreds and thousands of new cells with every beat of my heart. No chemotherapy, no miracle cure. Every heartbeat, I slipped a little more. Drowned a little deeper. Fell a little further into the bottomless ocean of feelings for him. I”
“Even God can be bought for the right price.” I”
“Killing children or adults -- equally horrible.”
“She could envision Shakespeare's sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare's sister, whereas I know that isn't what happened. You see, it isn't necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm only saying that isn't what usually happens. It it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don't have to rape or kill her; you don't even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare's sister did...follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother didn't provide, and if he has to put up with a screaming kid he isn't sure is his, he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of the fathers or the fathers of their children. But Shakespeare's sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along in the world without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm.
So much for the natural relation between the sexes.
But you see, he doesn't have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he'd lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labor regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men's white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college -- these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life.
They may, you say wearily, but who's interested?...Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do....They are always there in the back ground, like Time's winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.”
“I should say I am far more cleverer than any of the people who put me here. As a matter of fact, I could leave any time I wanted. It's only a doll house after all. Anyway, I don't mind. I like dolls.
Particularly the live ones.”
“Say 'Kenmore Square'," I insist.
"Kenmaw Sqway-ah."
"Say 'Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina.'"
"Nothing could be finah than to be in Caroliner.'"
"You're doing that on purpose."
"I'm not. I sway-ah.”
“She dropped her coat on the back of a chair and crept quietly up to Jay’s room. She did her best not to wake him as she pulled the door closed behind her. She watched him sleep, stretched out on his back, feeling herself coming back to life in his presence.
“What are you doing?” he mumbled without opening his eyes.
Violet startled, feeling like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been. Like when they were little and they were busted for looking at a dirty magazine one of the other kids brought to school.
Jay rolled onto his side and squinted one eye open at Violet, grinning. “Come over here,” he growled, lifting the corner of his sheet up, inviting her in. He looked rumpled and messy and alluring.
Violet slipped off her shoes and climbed in beside him. He wrapped his arm around her back, pulling her close. His breath was warm, his body warmer, and she felt herself thawing for the first time since she’d stepped out into the shipyard that morning. Even the heat blasting inside her car on the way home hadn’t helped.
She tucked her feet between his legs.
“What are you doing here so early?” His voice was rough from sleep but it sounded like soft velvet. He stroked her back lazily. “Are you feeling better today?”
Neither question really needed an answer; they were just Jay’s way of letting her know he’d been worried about her.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered as she let herself get comfortable against him. She’d been cold and tired, and now that she was warm again she thought she might actually be able to fall asleep, right there in his arms.
He rested his chin against the top of her head. “You didn’t,” he assured her. “I was already awake.”
Violet sighed. It felt so good to be here. It was the first time she’d felt comfortable since she’d gone to Seattle yesterday with Chelsea. Jay made her feel safe—among other things—and she needed that right now.
She closed her eyes; they were gritty and raw from lack of sleep. She breathed deeply, inhaling him, and relaxing as she sank further into him . . . and into the pillow beneath her head.
She fell asleep like that, wrapped in warmth.
Wrapped in Jay.”
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