PATTY

“He once heard that the best way to prepare mentally for becoming a parent is to stay in a tent at a weeklong rock festival with a load of fat friends who are smoking hash. You blunder about in a permanent state of acute sleep deprivation wearing clothes covered with stains from food that is only very rarely your own, you suffer from tinnitus, you can’t go near a puddle without some giggling fool jumping in it, you can’t go to the bathroom without someone standing outside banging on the door, you get woken up in the middle of the night because someone was “just thinking about something,” and you get woken up the next morning to find someone pissing on you.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“I love you,” she whispered, remembering that time so long ago when she’d said it to him before. She’d been so young and shiny then. “I love you, too,” he said, his voice breaking. “I did from the first minute I saw you. I thought I was protecting you by not telling you. If I’d known…” How fragile life was, how fragile they were. Love.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale