He longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder.

...there was no point in sighing after what I could not have. It only distracted me from what I did have.

The knowledge that he had left me with no intent ever to return had come over me in tiny droplets of realization spread over the years. And each droplet of comprehension brought its own small measure of hurt...He had wished me well in finding my own fate to follow, and I never doubted his sincerity. But it had taken me years to accept that his absence in my life was a deliberate finality, an act he had chosen, a thing completed even as some part of my soul still dangled, waiting for his return.

Why does the forbidden always add that edge of sweetness?

If all of her was not enough for him, then let him have none of her and seek what he needed elsewhere.

...some secrets beg to be betrayed. The secret of undeclared love is like that.