mistake being needed for being cherished.
Never mistake being claimed for being chosen.
Choose the life in which you can breathe.
Choose the people beside whom you are allowed to remain yourself.
And if someday you are fortunate enough to find kindness, do not distrust it merely because cruelty taught you to expect a price.
Love,
Mother
Rosalie read it twice.
Then she walked outside.
Snow had begun falling.
Just as it had on her first wedding day.
Gideon stood near the chapel fence talking awkwardly with Mercer.
He saw Rosalie.
Immediately, everything else lost his attention.
He came toward her.
Rosalie handed him the letter.
He read.
When he reached the final paragraph, he looked up.
Rosalie touched the small scar behind his ear.
For years, that scar had represented what her family had taken from him.
Now she saw something else.
Survival.
Gideon signed:
You all right?
Rosalie
