Status Updates From Parable (The One, #2)

In books and movies, the romance part of the story always ends with the confession of love, or the realization of it … as if *love* were the end result of a love story. But anyone who has been in love knows that love is just the beginning. You learn more every day, every year, every decade … about the nature of love itself and, eventually, about the nature of loss.

We had won her over, but we had never *owned* her. She rejected all fences and leashes.

I don't actively dislike cats; I think they can be adorable and entertaining. Along w/revenge porn and political disinformation, they appear to be the whole reason the internet exists.

~~~~~

Their view of me ranged, roughly, from indifference to furniture.

A horse was used to herd cattle, and when it couldn't herd anymore, it was shot, cut up, and fed to the chickens, which would eat anything, and which were themselves eaten when they stopped laying eggs.

Hard weather makes for hard people, too; own 80 acres but farm only 40, and you grow up believing half of everything is $h!t.

In such a place, animals were either food or tools, or both.

One thing they were not: pets.