“You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they’re not living, breathing people any more.
It’s not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you, and makes you want to cry in the wrong places, and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead.
It’s just something you learn to accommodate.
Like adapting around a hole. I don’t know. It’s like you become … a doughnut instead of a bun”
― After You
It’s not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you, and makes you want to cry in the wrong places, and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead.
It’s just something you learn to accommodate.
Like adapting around a hole. I don’t know. It’s like you become … a doughnut instead of a bun”
― After You
“How could I convey the way those short months had changed the way I felt about everything? The way he had skewed my world so totally that is made no sense without him”
― After You
― After You
“I want to tell him that I don't know what i feel. I want him but i'm frightened to want him. I don;t want my happiness to be entirely dependent on somebody else's to be a hostage to fortunes I cannot control.”
― After You
― After You
“No journey out of grief was straightforward. There would be good days and bad days.”
― After You
― After You
Helen Freeman’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Helen Freeman’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Helen Freeman
Lists liked by Helen Freeman








