Cori Chalstrom > Recent Status Updates

“Today I’m going to do more than just survive.” The arm wrapped around her squeezed gently. “But on the hard days, promise me that you’ll pull me from the river.”
“Always, Love,” he answered. “I promise I will always pull you from the river and help you find the stars.”

“You would stay in the dark?” Callan challenged.
.“I would stay where I can see the stars,” she replied.

The moment I understood that love isn't about finding someone to complete you, it's about finding someone worth becoming your best self for.

Time was a pitiless teacher. And we were gluttonous students. We gobbled it up, wasted it, wished it away, and then got angry when it ran out, stomping our feet like children, declaring someone else to blame. Demanding we were owed more.

To choose to live and flourish despite the bad. And most important, to dare to dream of better days while your current world was a living nightmare.

“Every villain thinks themselves the hero. And vice versa. In truth, there’s a little villain and hero in each of us. Depending on the circumstances.”

“Fate may deal its hand, try encouraging our path or intervene, but we are ultimately free to choose our own destiny. Never doubt that.”

“Because I would have chosen you anyway. There is no world, no universe, no version of reality where I wouldn’t have chosen you. I would always. Choose. You.”

And because she says it with such confidence, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, I suddenly find myself smiling. Yeah. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I need to stop apologizing for who I am and for what I do. Maybe it’s time to stop second-guessing myself. To stop trying to make everyone like me.

And because she says it with such confidence, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, I suddenly find myself smiling. Yeah. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I need to stop apologizing for who I am and for what I do. Maybe it’s time to stop second-guessing myself. To stop trying to make everyone like me.

“Because fear is a weapon. It gives other people power over you without them even having to do anything.”

“Sometimes, our mistakes are so big that when they land, the consequences stretch out farther than you ever could’ve imagined.”

Grief isn’t based on someone’s length of presence. It’s based on the impact of their absence.

It began with a whisper and it will end with a scream. What comes between is a dance of fate’s tangled threads.

“You are who you decide to be, Noah. That’s all life is. A series of choices. And it looks like you have some big ones set before you.”

“Alone is a state of mind, nothin’ else. You remember that. So is fear.”

“You get to believe anything you want. Why would you choose to believe you will fail?”

“Don’t survive for anyone else. Survive for yourself. Survive because the thought of not surviving, the thought of letting those who would hurt you win, is so repulsive, you can’t stand it. Survive because you deserve to survive.”

“Don’t mistake the pain of change for failure.” His large, protective hands curled beneath my jaw, tipping my face to his. “You may not be the Queen anyone expected, but you are the Queen they need.”

“Show me your worst, my darling, and I’ll show you how far my love can go.”

When you jump—when you stand on the ledge, look down, and embrace what you see with arms wide open—there’s nothing helpless about it at all. Instead of terrifying, it’s liberating. You’re not in freefall... you’re in flight.

Sometimes there are no good choices. We do the best we can, and we hope we find forgiveness along the way.”

“My loyalty is to Violet first above everything, everyone else,” Xaden says. “Then Tyrrendor. Then Navarre in the moments it’s worthy—usually when Violet is in residence.”

“Yes, love, I’m jealous.” He splays his hand over the small of my back and tugs me toward him. “I’m jealous of the armor that holds you when I can’t, the sheets on your bed that caress your skin every night, and the blades that feel your hands.

I was everything I was meant to be. My father’s daughter. Victim and protégée. Greatest love and ruination.

But I don't love you like a princess. There isn't anything soft or sweet or easy about us. It's wild and unpredictable. It hurts more than any pain I've ever felt and consumes me more completely than anything I ever could have predicted. You make my heart race with all the best kinds of fear and my gut clench with the angriest butterflies I've ever known.

“Family forged and family bound,” the stars whispered and the way everyone stilled and looked up made me know they’d heard it too. “A gift for a fractured soul, for cruel fates and crueller paths. When the world grows dark, look to each other to find the light.”

I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. I love how you shattered my walls, how you gave me the family I so desperately craved. I love that you have made me a man I am proud of, Elise. But more than all that…” I took hold of her waist, pulling her flush against me and dipping my head to speak my final words against her lips. “I love you.”

The crystal in my palm burned hot as it drank in the memories and I hoped that one day she might find it and see them. See and feel just how much I'd loved her and know that I wouldn't have changed a single thing. Every risk I had taken had been for her. Every mistake I'd made and every pain I'd felt had all been worth it if it only meant she got to smile a little more often and live a little better.

Everything in life is about balance. Without pain, we cannot know pleasure, without sadness, we cannot appreciate joy. These equilibriums are what make the universe move forever forward. Without them, life would be static.