I promise you this. I’ll love you until the day I die even if I have to live without you. And if it’s fifty years from now, you come home, Nick Anderson. Do you hear me? I’ll be waiting on you.

You can’t turn love on and off like a light switch, no matter how hard you try. All you can do is wall it off, one brick at a time, until you’ve created an impenetrable fortress around your emotions. And once that fortress is built, you camouflage it so well that even you can’t see it anymore.

To my surprise, Nick reached under his shirt and pulled out the half-heart pendant. With his gaze fixed on mine, he slid the chain over my head. “No one should have to go through life with only half a heart,” he whispered.

This isn’t a church social, Sweetheart. You aren’t going to be able to save me this time.

There are endless new variations on how to hurt a woman physically, emotionally, financially, and socially.

People who are pierced should not be snickered at, should not become the object of ridicule, should not be singled out for special and uneven and unequal treatment. They should be respected just like everybody else.