Happy for Now. I could live with that. I could learn to live with that.

Gus still thought he was missing something, some special piece other people had, the thing that made people stay...

Falling is the part that takes your breath away. It's the part when you can't believe the person standing in front of you both exists and happened to wander into your path. It's supposed to make you feel lucky to be alive, exactly when and where you are.

Then maybe we should enjoy our happy-for-now.

Speaking of fire, sometimes his eyes seemed to be reflecting it, even though there wasn't any. The car was nearly pitch-black, for God's sake. His eyes shouldn't be allowed, physically or morally, to glint like that. His pupils were disrespectful to the laws of nature. My skin started burning under them.

When I watch you sleep," he said shakily, "I feel overwhelmed that you exist.

Beau, what is it you want?""A porch," he says softly. He says it like it's my name, and right then, I think, what both of us want more than anything is something we can never have. "All I really want is to build a house with a nice, big porch that gets used every day.

In books, I'd always felt like the Happily Ever After appeared as a new beginning, but for me, it didn't feel like that. My Happily Ever After was a strand of strung-together happy-for-nows, extending back not just to a year ago, but to thirty years before. Mine had already begun, and so this day was neither an ending nor a beginning. It was just another good day. A perfect day. A happy-for-now, so vast and deep that I knew — or rather believed — I didn't have to worry about tomorrow.

I twist my fingers through his hair, press my lips to his cheek. The words tangle in my throat, being born and dying a thousand times. I love you.