LEARNING TO LIVE
Ciera
All I wanted was to be able to make it through my senior year. I didn’t need the stares, the jokes, or the bullies. I thought I could do it all on my own, but I was wrong. He filled my veins like a poison, the kind you can’t run from. Harsh and uncaring, he was broken, but somewhere along the way he seeped into my pores. There was no way out, so that left me with one choice: to open his eyes to the beauty around him. To help him live.
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Topher
She wasn’t on my agenda; it was fate’s cruel way of telling me I needed to get my shit together. To be fair, my head was so far up my ass, I’m not sure how we extracted it. I knew the power I held over my peers, I exuded it daily. I could have any girl I wanted at the snap of my fingers, and yet I found myself fantasizing about her-someone so far off my radar it wasn’t even funny. She helped me understand that sometimes you need to let go to really live. Sometimes being alive means taking risks.
LIFE AFTER
Topher
I’d never imagined I would find someone who completed me, just to lose her. I’d never imagined the love I felt could be overshadowed by the deepest depression I’d ever lived through. Two years had passed since she touched my life, since she was taken from me. I was afraid to let anyone else close, afraid to lose them like I lost her, and then Destiny crashed into my life. She was nothing like Ciera, and that’s what attracted me. The more she pushed me away, the more I wanted her. I knew I was playing with fire, but I liked the burn.
Destiny
He was so unexpected, nothing like the guys I would normally go for, but he was persistent. He saw the ugliness inside of me, and he accepted it; he nurtured it. I’d been looking out for me for so long that, when he came into the picture, I couldn’t accept it. It was too good to be true. He was too good to be true, too good for someone like me. But when shit hit the fan, Topher was there by my side, holding me up. He didn’t run away when things got tough, and that meant the world to me. I wasn’t Ciera; I didn’t want to be her. I just wanted a chance to show him the love I knew he deserved.
MY FOREVER
Madalynne
Life can be cruel and unexpected, ripping your heart out when you least expect it. You never think it can be you and then it happens and you’re left to pick up the pieces of your broken life. I was grieving, understandably so, each stage pushing me further and further from him. There was never a doubt in my mind that Parker and I were soul mates. No one had ever made me feel the way he did, and I don’t want them to. Through all the hard times, he was there. Parker was the only person I could lean on, the only person I could talk to about my feelings. He pulled me out of my depression. He helped me see the light again.
Parker
She was hurting and I wanted to be there for her. When my brother Bo passed, I slipped into a deep depression, and even though I pushed Madalynne away at every turn, she never gave up on me. I owed her my life, and I wanted to spend the rest of mine making her happy. Even with our connections to others, my love for her never wavered. It was something embedded so deep inside my bones, she would always be a part of me. That’s why I never gave up hope that somehow, someday, we would be together again.
BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN
Jacqueline
I’m messed up. I could say it was a result of my childhood, but honestly I blame myself. The medicine made me feel numb, the blood made me feel high. He wasn’t supposed to be mine, but although he was scared in the beginning, he didn’t run from my demons. He found beauty in my flaws, beauty in the cracks that barely held me together.
Lee
I had it good, any girl of the week, my dream job, stability, and even then, I knew deep down something was missing. Madalynne opened a door for me, Jacqueline lit the flame. She wasn’t perfect, far from it, but underneath the pain and the scars, I saw her. Sometimes the ones worth fighting for don’t know their worth. Sometimes being broken is beautiful.
AGAINST ALL ODDS
Austyn
He was my everything from the first moment I laid eyes on him. He could have asked me to marry him the first month and I would have said yes. I knew he was the one. He used to make my knees weak just at the sight of him. No one could have predicted it. That's life I suppose. Full of unexpected twists and turns. There were so many times I contemplated walking away; contemplated how much simpler my life would become...but it wasn't that easy; he wasn't easy to walk away from...
Avery
There was never any doubt in my mind that Austyn was the woman I would be spending the rest of my life with, I just didn’t see the rush to the alter if we already knew that. My eyes never wandered, and, why would they? She was a modern-day goddess. No one could have prepared me for that day. Had I known, I still believe the outcome would have remained the same. I know it was difficult on her, it would have been difficult on anyone, but she stayed strong for me. I honestly believe she saved me-she saved my life.