"I became the griever. It's a dark and monstrous thing--grief. I lost myself in it. I forgot who I was. I didn't recognize my life. I was in someone else's nightmare. When I became the griever, it overshadowed every thought, every impulse, every aspect of my existence. I was only the griever. It swallowed me whole, and I let it. I let it consume me. I wouldn't pray. I wouldn't let anyone close. What is it pigs do in the mud? Oh, yes. Wallow. I wallowed. I wallowed in my misery."
RANDOM
He was drowning in a sea of acquaintances, its tide of guile ever rising. While he waited for the inevitable wave to take him under, he sat, alone, in his perfect disguise, and observed the normal life he had unwittingly relinquished.
"Don't you see? Look at me, Riley.
Really look at me.
This is what's left of me.
Ruins.
Wreckage.
Damaged remains
of the person I was."
"I'm an off-the-rack, run-of-the-mill, over-the-counter makeup girl, whereas your face appears on every media outlet in existence."
"Light follows you around like a devoted puppy."
"I realize it's hard to believe,
but the verity of it settled,
sure and strong, in my chest.
I look at you, and I know this is something."
"Jocelyn," he tried aloud, as if no one else on earth had ever warranted a name.
"It didn't take nine days.
I knew the first time I heard you speak.
I knew the first time you read my face
with those eyes of yours,
looking into the deepest parts of my soul.
Something clicked.
Something fell into place.
Locked and loaded.
I knew right then.
I know right now."
"You've been
mourning
the future, Joss."
"How do you see light, when I'm wandering in murk?"
Nothing could erase the indelible division line drawn by a camera lens.
FACT: The hand models on the cover are the author's son and daughter-in-law
I'm saying
hello to you.
"She sees
in a
thousand
shades
of
human."
"You don't need to say anything.
Your kiss told me how your heart feels.
I can be patient while your head catches up."
We're walking plagues, you and I -- monster swarms and great floods. Perhaps people should be warned of the danger."
"It isn't greedy to love, Jocelyn.
It's selfless to take a chance on someone like me.
It's brave to love when you've known the pain of loss."
An overpowering urge to fall into step with her washed through him. He imagined taking his place beside her, matching her stride, holding her gaze, and entwining his fingers with hers as they strolled along. He belonged there.
It was the kind of KISS that made a girl count her blessings.
"The BOOK is always better than the MOVIE, you know."
"I'm afraid
the man I am
with you,
won't exist
without you."
FACT: The whole story sprouted from a dream on
April 28, 2008.
FACT: The plague site Riley is named for is located in Eyam in the Derbyshire Dales of England.
It wasn't easy, analyzing her feelings. She'd spent three years becoming proficient at ignoring them. Did she have feelings for Riley? Maybe.
The problem was, if she explored new feelings, the old ones would fester until she dealt with them, too.
"I was cleaning. The floor was horribly gross. All this loamy mountain soil gets tracked in on everyone's shoes. By the end of the day, I could plant a garden."
"I'm partial to a town with a park at its center--a town built around something living and natural and green--like it has a heart.
A town seems more sincere with a park thriving at its core."
FACT: The cover photographer is the author's talented daughter-in-law.
His need for anonymity evaporated.
He needed her to know him.
He needed to know her.
​
He needed to know her name.
He needed it.
Like air.
Like light.
He stifled a gasp at the intensity of it.
I'd gotten comfortable being alone.
Now, alone just feels lonely.
She was perturbed by her compulsion to over-think it, to poke holes in his reasoning, until it all collapsed through her sieve of disbelief.
"I know the human eye is attracted to beauty.
It's why I have a job.
I make attractive people even more attractive so human eyes will pay top dollar to sit in theaters and watch those they're attracted to on the screen.
It has nothing to do with inner beauty.
A moth to a flame.
I also think our spirits, or souls, are attracted to other souls. It has nothing to do with outer beauty.
We're drawn to kindred spirits.
Our souls do a better job of it than our eyes."
"I'll gladly stay awake while you're here to
chase away the solitude, and leave sleep for the lonely hours."
FACT: The characters were named Riley and Jocelyn in a dream. The names were NOT chosen because they begin with the same letters as Romeo and Juliet. Riley and Jocelyn's love story is also much longer, much happier, and entirely void of either daggers or poison. :)
When I'm with him? He loves me. When I'm alone? He loves me not. Jocelyn awoke, plucking metaphorical petals from the daisy of self-doubt. On autopilot, she went for a run, showered, and dressed, all while her head argued both sides of the dilemma, leaving a meadow of naked stems behind.
"Funny, how I had to let it go before I could see what was right in front of me, all along."
You're asking me to
Let Go?
"He's different from his peers. He isn't the self-absorbed hedonistic type with the syrupy smile and the leering eye who thinks he's God's gift to women."
I don't know anything about you, if truth be told.
​
In the end, what I recognize of you, tells me nothing of who you are.
​
I don't know your beliefs, goals, perceptions, interests, fears, regrets, history, or hopes.
​
Those traits stack together to make a person who they are -
the building blocks of the soul.
I know absolutely nothing of those.
​
So, ultimately, I know nothing of you.
​
The glossy wrapper of you is all I recognize.
"Until one of those good Mormon boys steps up, you'll have to put up with me falling in love
with you.
I've decided being your best friend isn't enough--at least, not for me."
"When I'm listening to
music
I'm not alone."
"Every moment I'm with you, I pretend." She bristled in his grasp. "I pretend I'm worthy of you. I pretend I'm exactly what you want--what you need--to be happy. I pretend I'll never know what it is to be without you."
She wasn't kidding about needing his friendship. When he stopped seeking eye contact, like everything was an inside joke between them, it was going to hurt.
One great day with a guy, and here I go,
getting attached.
When I'm with him,
all is right with the world.
As soon as I'm not, I realize how stupid I am
to think so."​
​"Jocelyn, you are your past. You taught me that. Your past is what shaped you into the incredible woman who holds my heart. Your past is what built you--those all-important building blocks of the soul. The past was where you shattered, but it's also where you began to rebuild."
Step One?
​
Get up from it.
I can imagine . . .
Fact: Did you notice that you didn't learn either Riley's or Jocelyn's name until the moment they introduced themselves to one another? The author used a literary device known as The Nameless Protagonist so the reader would meet them at the same moment they met each other.