Status Updates From Married Without Benefits

For a long time, there was nothing but the sound of our breathing. Then he started to mumble in Arabic—low verses of Quran that vibrated through his chest, into me. His other hand drifted, skimming down my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder.

My precious babies!!!🥺🥺🥺🥺

"You told me you weren’t interested in love,” he murmured, half a smile ghosting across his face through the dim light. “But I don’t think that’s true. You’re like those sunsets you’re always chasing. How can something that beautiful and radiant not want to be loved?”
STOPPPP MY HEARTTTTT

"I'm sorry that I come across as emotionally unavailable,” he continued, voice hoarse. “The emotion is there, it consumes every part of me, it’s just clogged. I don’t know how to let it out without drowning in it. I’m sorry I can’t be more, can’t give you more, but if I were capable of being that for anyone...."
“I think I would choose that person to be you. I’d want it to be you, Lillian.”
AHHHHH

"You’re a healer,” he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. “You’re a helper. You’re the light people see when they’re surrounded by darkness, when they think it’s all over. And I know that because...you’re my light, Lillian. So I need you to believe me, okay? I need you to believe that this wasn’t your fault.”

UNWELL FERAL AND OBSESSED

"Anyone can run from their emotions that’s the easy way out. But staying, feeling everything, letting it crack you open and rebuild you? That’s strength.” He took a breath, as if steadying himself for the truth. "That’s how I know you’ll get through this. You won’t let it break you the way it broke me. You’ll take this sadness, this pain, and use it to make yourself an even better doctor."

I'm UNWELL

"You’re the opposite in every way, but most importantly in how brave you are, how you walk straight into fire, like the flames have better luck fearing you than you fearing them. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and I know you think that’s your fatal flaw, but it isn’t. It’s your greatest gift."

So so so well written, I felt all the grief and shock and more, so beautiful 10 on 10

"Words would have ruined it. Everything that mattered lived in the silence, in the breath that left him, uneven, like he was trying not to feel too much and failing. For the first time since we’d signed the marriage papers, I stopped pretending I didn’t want to be touched by him. And when he finally sighed into the crook of my neck, something in my chest loosened so completely it almost hurt." ♥️🥺

IT'S 2AM SHOULD I SLEEP OR NOT AHHAHAHAHHAHA

Oh Lebanon you're my everything I've never been more in love with a chapter before the way you described Beirut, the resilience and survival and how we're stitched up with war and yet we shine was breathtaking thank you thank you thank you 💗💗💗

Yeah no I want one Khalifa added to my cart please THE WAY I WAS SO IRRITATED AT FIRST BUT NOW I'm GIGGLING I LOVE ACTS OF SERVICE OMFGSNSNNSNSNSNNWNSNED

And love to see that behind the efficient, stoic, robotic man is someone who actually cares about his family and education and appreciates her efforts, he cooks and cleans but he's not perfect, he's not charming so I love that she sees different sides of him, both the good & the bad and feels comfortable enough around him because eventually he sees her too and they both understand and trust and support each other

THEIR BANTER >>>>
I love that they both are so raw, unfiltered, unapologetically themselves, they don't sugarcoat things or change themselves to fit someone's expectations, I like Lilly's past, I really feel connected to her, the fact that she never truly felt loved by her parents because she was a daughter: too loud, too bold, too much, never perfect, never put together, never quiet, never enough, I love it

I'm actually crying at her internal monologue, the suffocating feeling that you're a burden, a guest in your parent's house omg so relatable
the way "Stop The Wedding" was literally written all over these few chapters I can't begin to explain how on edge I was, I'm so obsessed with our FMC and the Middle Eastern vibes so well documented thank you author <3

Last book for the year 🥹

This is ALREADY sounding like my new FAV thing ever

"I wasn't interested. Not in trading my hard-won independence for the quiet erasure of becoming someone’s wife. I had no desire to melt into the shadow of a man whose approval granted me existence. I’d watched my mother do that, watched her brilliance dull to a polite shimmer and decided early I’d rather be alone than invisible."

QUEEN BEHAVIOR I LOVE HER

Started this book randomly in college😂😂 and I’m obsessed.