Love could not save her from the bargains others had made.

I missed you,” she cried into him. Standing on top of the snow gave him an additional few inches on her and she rested her head against his chest. She could hear nothing within, just her own heartbeat echoing.

There might have been prettier women in the room but, when she turned those babies on, fluttered her eyelashes, I was hers. It had taken me nearly fifteen years to extinguish their light. Now, when she looks at me, it's a vacuum. I had drained so much from her over the course of our marriage that every glance rips a little bit of my soul away to fill the void I had whittled within her.

She could not keep his death in her head, like when she tried to imagine the infiniteness of the universe and nearly swooned at the vastness of the thought.

She was an exotic flower amongst the snowdrifts, out of place, a Technicolor misfit in a monochrome Christmas movie.

You and me? We are never going to be just friends. The only time I'm not adoring you is when I am too busy hating you and wishing to God I never met you...