Let me rephrase.” He took a seething step toward me. “When it comes to you… I don’t like to share.

Sometimes the clouds weren’t weightless. Sometimes their bellies got dark and full. It was life. It happened. It didn’t mean it wasn’t scary, or that I wasn’t still afraid, but now I knew that as long as I was standing under it with Braden beside me when those clouds broke, I’d be alright.

Hey, you’re the one who can’t stand me being so close to you.

What’s bothering me is you always seem ready to snap my head off my shoulders and I’m not comfortable with that.

She loved this man. This wonderful, respectiful, willful man. And she couldn’t even tell him.

Her heart unfolded in her chest, took in all of him, and closed tightly, unwilling to let him go