Archer's Voice

I think love is a concept, and each person has an individual word for what sums it up for them. My word for love is “Bree.”

. "So now she's going to go around saying, 'I Bree you?'" she asked, smiling softly.

Goodnight, Bree. He turned back around and seconds later, he was gone. I leaned back against my car and grinned like a fool

Why did you say no? Tell me.

He didn't say anything for a few beats and then, Because I don't want to be with anyone except you. I didn't want her, I only want you. I only want you, Bree.

I thought about how Bree and I were so different… and yet so similar. She carried the guilt of not fighting when she thought she should have, and I carried the scar of what happened when you did. We had each reacted differently in a moment of terror, and yet we both still hurt. Maybe there was no right or wrong, no black or white, only a thousand shades of grey when it came to pain and what we each held ourselves responsible for.

Archer Hale had taught himself an entire language, but hadn't had a single person to talk to.

Until me.

Don't run from me, I said. I can't call to you. Please don't run from me

Someday, I said, when we're old and gray, I'm going to look at you lying in bed beside me, just like this, and I'm going to look into your eyes and know that it's only ever been you. And that is going to be the great joy of my life, Bree Prescott.

I pulled my beautiful girl closer against me as she sighed out in her sleep, and I closed my eyes. I was home.

Bad things don't happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn't work that way. It's just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we're dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there's a purpose to the journey we're on.