I’m reading my way through Broken again and marking the excerpts that really sunk into my heart. Here are three that truly make me smile (and cry) every time I hear them.

Play Time: 2:46 “Seven years”

Play Time: 2:41 “I only remembered his hands”

 

 

Play time: 6:43

Here is one of my most favorite parts of “Broken”

Be careful.

I repeated the mantra. I could love him too easily. But I can’t. Just be careful.

I wandered the hill side and welcomed the wind that passed o’er me. He was there on the hill and I smiled.

“Dia duit, lass,” he said and smiled.

I have loved deeply, passionately, completely, swiftly, and fondly. I have known soft love, gentle love, hard love, crazed love, obsessed love, and love brewed slowly. Love that faded, love that ended dead on a dime, and love I savored…but this…When they say it hits you like lightning, it really does hit you that hard, that sudden, and that strong, and you feel it in that instant.

It was instant…like he took up a sword glowing bright from the forge and thrust the blade hard right through me. He pierced my heart. It impaled me and poured an inferno down into me that spread from my chest to every fiber of my being.

I gasped and in that moment, just like that, I loved him long and deep and hard and for the rest of my life.

I stopped there and stared into his eyes.

He stared back and saw me too.

With but a word you have the power to reach into the very heart of me and possess me. I wanted to say. Already you own me. I am yours. Command me. I will do as you bid, you only need but to ask. As simple as a smile, a whisper, a wish. I would fight to the ends of the earth and bring you back your deepest dreams. Command me. For only then am I whole.

I said none of this.

After a moment, I approached him.

“Beautiful morning,” he said. “Almost as beautiful as you.”

His words twisted the blade through my heart, but it felt good. Too good.

“It is and…” I made sure he looked into my eyes. “…you need to be careful.” For I could love you until I die and you can not have me, for I can not be had.

“I’m sorry,” he said and it pulled at my heart.

But if anyone were to have me, I’d want it to be you. “Please, no sorries,” I said instead. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I’m Irish, lass,” he said. “We only ever say sorry.”

So like me. You are I. I thought. Again, I saw him in me.

In silence we stood while I watched the world around me and let my mind wander.

Be careful. Angel’s voice rang loud and clear. If he loves you, he can not have you.

But it was too late.

I loved him. I knew the look in his eye the choices he made with words. He mirrored me. I had no doubt he loved me too. But things were complicated. To leave things unspoken…I may already love him, but that didn’t mean…

No. He couldn’t have me. He needed to know that.

I thought back to my conversations with Pat and I thought of Jacob. I thought of Isaiah and Nick three years ago. I thought of Joe and Piss-ant and Scott. I thought of everything and Ireland. And standing there, I thought of him.

To thine own self be true.

I never lie. I will never hold back again.

“Why can’t I stop thinking of you?” I had but whispered the words, but he heard. He turned and looked at me.

“Forgive my forwardness,” I said. “Life’s too short. I tend to be blunt.”

He was listening.

“I like you,” I said. “A lot. Really a lot. So much more than I should. I can’t even tell you everything about you that I like because then I would be in serious trouble.

“There are too many reasons why I can’t “more than” like you. But I love talking to you. I love what you love and I love the way you speak. I love how much you remind me so much of everything I love like Ireland, music, writing, Poe, and so…so much more. I love how easy it is to pour my heart out to you.”

I watched my words reach down into him. I saw me slide into his mind and heart, just like he had slid into mine. If ever I was meant to love anyone, it was him and I think, at that moment, he knew this.

“So here’s the deal,” I said. “I tell you that I like you and that I can’t ever be more than just your friend. And I won’t tell you how much I can’t stop thinking about you or how I replay our conversations over in mind a little bit more than I should, or how much I think about making love to you…how much you make my blood burn when I think of you. I won’t say any of that. Instead, I will tell you that I like you. A lot more than I should and that we are just friends…good friends…because we can never be more than that.”

There. I thought. Good. I said it. I will leave now.

I turned, but he caught my hand and with it, my breath.

“What do you want with me, Raven?”

“This,” he said. “What we have. What we are right now. I want you to know that if ever I could, I would go to you so fast.”

I could feel the fire. Every word we spoke rode on the heat from the blade he slid through me.

And just like that, I saw the same wants and dreams in me reflected in him, if just for that moment.

In my mind, right there I made love to him. I touched him to watch him move with me. I tasted him, I drank him. I took him into me. When I looked in his eyes, I lived and loved and died in his arms. I loved him as completely and as deeply as I was ever able to love. And all at once, I didn’t care what would become of me, what my fate would bring, if I died never being known or remembered. If I died never being loved or accepted again, I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I loved him and treasured his happiness far deeper than I could ever love my own.

Our time was up. I had to go back. I could hear the other worlds calling me. I brushed my lips over his and as I turned, I heard him call me, ‘Wife.’