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528 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2022
𝓼𝓹𝓸𝓲𝓵𝓮𝓻 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓮 𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀
⤷ i am forever undone. christian hemmes will forever have that toe curling, sheet gripping, thigh clenching effect.
⤷ so many things i’d rather say, but for now it’s goodbye
⤷ it’s been about three weeks since i’ve finished this. three. weeks. i’ve been in a bit of a reading and review slump ever since because this book has completely consumed me to the point where i can’t even think straight.
⤷ i am obsessed with everything julian. i want to talk about him and how he is specifically in this book so fucking bad, but i can’t spoil it for you lovelies!! this man constantly has me giggling, kicking my feet, swooning, screaming, all that good stuff. i wanna know why he gets so much hate😔i just love it when a scary, dangerous man shows his soft, gentle side🥹weak in the knees every time.
⤷ christian hemmes needs to kiss me. make me see stars😩
⤷ fuckkkk he is so down bad😩and i am so down bad for him.
⤷ this replays in my head over and over and over again. i’ll never be the same. i want these words tattooed on my body idc.
⤷ brb, gasping for air.
Some people have freckles sprinkled on their noses, other people have eyes clear like water, or hair that’s the colour of the night, but me? My unique feature is that I lose everyone, and everyone loses me.
“𝙊𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙄’𝙙 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙚, 𝙗𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙄 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙖𝙬, 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙮𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙚𝙮𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄’𝙢 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙙, 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙚’𝙫𝙚 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙪𝙥 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣. 𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨, 𝙄’𝙢 𝙞𝙣.”
“𝙄 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙𝙣’𝙩 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚, 𝙄 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙘𝙖𝙣’𝙩. 𝙄𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙙 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙄’𝙢 𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚.”
“𝘿𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙮 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙥 — 𝙄 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧. 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩. 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙧.”
“𝙄𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙄 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙠𝙤𝙣 𝙄 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪.”
“𝙄𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙄 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪—“
“I never thought that he’d morph into one of those rare people whose presence undoes you”
She drops her head on my shoulder and my head falls back and I stare at nothing in the sky, take a big breath, breathe in how much I love her.
“Happy New Year,” she says, not looking at me.
I don’t say anything for a few seconds. Drop my head on top of hers, let it rest there how it always wants to. “This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me on a midnight.”
“I love this one,” she tells me.
“Me too,” I say, staring at her.
“I didn’t know how to pack him down, I didn’t know how to take loving him apart—I don’t think I can. I think I accidentally loved him in a way where he’ll be my weak knee forever.”
“Daisy for me was a complete trip—I accidentally fell in love with her, and I accidentally lost her. I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready to love someone how it turns out I love her.”
“Fuck. I hate loving her. It’s the great undoing of my heart as I know it.”
“What am I to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know—” I give her a little shrug, stare straight ahead. Take a long sip before I look over at her. “Like, just—everything.”
“When he kissed me, I felt like this. This stupid floaty feeling, like how those NASA pictures look of the galaxies with the space dust all pink and purple and stars and planets—that’s kissing Christian Hemmes. Even if none of it’s real.”
“In another life I reckon I could have loved you,” I tell her.
She gives me a little smile back. “In another life I would have let you—”
Never you mind that I already love her in this one.
“I love him. He’s all I want. He’s all I think about. Everything I didn’t want or believe about love, I want and believe in it with him. And loving him has undone me wide open.”
“I love her!”

“But you’re the sun, Face! You’re the sun that shines on everything and makes it all light and you’re
the thing makes us know right from wrong — and when you left we got worse, but now you’re back.”
My best friend in my kitchen at my mum’s house.
You ever stand on sinking sand before? When you’re by the shore, and your feet just melt into the ground? That’s what kissing her feels like, so I hold the fucking table tighter.
“You’re Central Park at midnight.”
I think she’s looking for something wrong with her face but it doesn’t exist and she still glares at
herself anyway.
Beautiful things keep me up at night, what can I say?
she’s telling me with a true and absolute conviction that my brother is definitely not an art thief
while she braids my hair.
“Not that kind of mother.”
Somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean at 2:20am on April 15th, 1912 the Titanic sank shortly after she broke in half.
He’s the Statue of Liberty — I’ll give him my tired, my poor, my yearning to breathe free.
“The huntsman.”
Henry speed-walks into the kitchen and rounds the corner gesticulating to us wildly, bolstering arms, thumbs up, jazz hands around his face, mouths the word ‘pretty’ and then she walks in to the kitchen to a chorus of “wow” and “ooh” from the three of us, and she puts her hands on her hips.
And I know what that means — she’s climbed over the wall and into my fucking heart somehow, but it’s fine. Because I know what I am to her. I’m the buoy she’s clinging onto while she waits for the ship she fell off to come back and get her. Happy to be clung to, I s’pose.
“What’s it like loving someone how you two love each other?” I ask her, a bit because I genuinely don’t know and a bit because I can’t tell her how Ifeel, and talking around it might be the closest I can get.
“This dies with me, remember?”
Whenever we’re standing, whether she’s facing me or her back’s to me, her hands are in my pockets. Front pockets, back pockets, the big one at the front of a hoodie, her and her little ice-lollie hands always find mine.
Magnolia started crying because she said she felt misunderstood when people rushed her in the cosmetics section, and the customs official thought she was being trafficked.
Then a grandma — you had a grandma who made a fucking ace éclair—”
“We had a grandma who loved a drop—” Jo offers unhelpfully.
I’ll just measure your inseam—” She smiles up at him and he looks over at me panicked as she goes to bend down and Christian and I both yell, “No!” I shake my head. “No — that’s — just — we can guess.” “Oh.” She frowns, not really tracking.
“Lover!” Jonah crows.
“He’s a lover!” Hughie jeers.
I roll my eyes.
“Does she measure your inseam a lot?” Jukes asks and I toss him a look.
“Alright, everyone—” I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, shut up!” Carmelo yells. “Lover’s got something to say—”
She is the goddess in the Botticelli clam shell, her eyes are the waterlilies in Monet’s pond, she is the hand of God reaching down to mankind. Klimt’s kiss is a portrait of us and I’m gonna steal it.
It’s the great undoing of my heart as I know it. She’s made herself at home, kicked off those fucking cerulean heels, put her feet up on my left rib. Over the mantelpiece she hung her own portrait up herself, that little minx. Best painting I’ve ever seen, too. Better than any woman anyone has
ever painted in the history of time, a face I’d win battles for. A face I’d lose anything for. Even her.
You’re a little bit magic, aren’t you, Daisy Haites?”
Tell her about this fucking shit thing that happened to someone I love, have her pause uncomfortably, not knowing what to say so she shows me photos of the most important dresses in history and runs her hands through my hair but I can’t.
Mum used to say to me — when you pick who you want to be with, you have to imagine every part of life, every scenario. Good, bad, happy, sad, painful, beautiful — not just the person you want to do road trips with, but the person you want to be stuck in gridlock traffic with. Not just the person
you want to have babies with, but the person you want to grieve with, the person you want next to you on the worst day of your life, at the funeral of someone you love, who’s next to you? Who do you go home to? You don’t need a fair-weather lover, you need the person that’s going to stand next to
you in their wellies, staring down the barrel of the storm.
Love is wild, isn’t it? It makes a life so much more valuable… not just to me but to my enemies. No one was trying to kill Magnolia Parks until I loved her.
I lose people like a tree loses its leaves in autumn. I’m marred by it. It’s the thing that’s shaped me most… My distinctive characteristic… Some people have freckles sprinkled on their noses, other people have eyes clear like water, or hair that’s the colour of the night, but me? My unique feature is that I lose everyone, and everyone loses me.