Meredith is a hot mess’s Reviews > What Love > Status Update

I'm the shittiest arc reader ever. Never finished my review or posted to Amazon or Bookbub. There are so many reviews I need to crosspost 😭

Ultimately, I had decided I was alone, and I had only myself to contend with. Mine was the only opinion that had mattered. Mine and His, that is.

"Then you know what I mean about surviving by holding on to what matters."

I nod, relishing the feel of his chin digging into me. "Yeah, I do. I thought of it as surrender to survive."

Metal feathers flap to the beat of my heart, and a red pyramid looms larger in my head again. Could those wings support me now? Do I even remember how to fly?

I took all He taught me, and kept myself together for the last two years. At times, I lost sight of why…only that a part of Him lived as long as I did. Those days, that had to be enough.

Now, those two years with Him have become like the books on my shelf—a bedtime story I tell to keep the hope of love alive in a heart that’s barely living.

He smiles now, a slow show of deep pain. “No, sweet woman, you haven’t. If you had, you’d remember that love is everything. It doesn’t end unless you let it. It’s not lost unless you leave it behind. It’s not something to be set free unless you’ve kept it caged.”

My eyes fill with tears as I search the look on His face.

“Your love…you need to set it free.” His voice echoes, trailed by the ghost of His touch…

To live is to suffer,

to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

― Friedrich Nietzsche

He was right. I hate that my bedroom is still pink, and girly. I prefer the dark woods, and deep shades of blues, and greens in the room we shared.

-I cling to any details about her life with Him I can.

It’s as if the clock has rewound to before my cage, and I’m back to being that sheltered girl He’d seen in a park. I live in my head, and hold back my emotions. I live for hope, and a love unknown.

I despise wearing clothes.