Martha

“This isn’t the end. It’s just a little pause in our lives. And I’ll be watching over you, every single day. I’ll be in your heart. I’ll be in the blossom grove that we love so much, in the sun and the wind.”
― Tillie Cole, A Thousand Boy Kisses

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Wait!” Juliet pulls away from her father, and once again, she’s breathless and looking up at me. “Declan.”

I hold myself at a distance. The spell is broken. “Juliet.”

She closes that distance, though, and then does one better. She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me forward. For half a second, my brain explodes because I think we’re going to have a movie moment and she’s going to kiss me. And then it’s going to be super awkward because of her father.

But no, she’s only pulling me close to whisper. Her breath is warm on my cheek, sweet and perfect.

“We were wrong,” she says. “You make your own path.”

Then she spins, grabs her father’s hand, and leaves me there in the middle of the cemetery.”
― Brigid Kemmerer, Letters to the Lost

“You’re exactly as strong as I thought you were.”
― Brigid Kemmerer, Letters to the Lost