Another gripping suspense courtesy of Gillian Flynn! As usual, she got to let her readers use their brains again. Like Gone Girl, Dark Place will keep you second-guessing until the last few chapters of the book.
When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he'll never read it. Because he never will. Every secret thought, every careful observation, everything I've saved up inside me, I put it all in the letter. They're not for love letters in the strictest sense of the word. My letters are for when I don't want to be in love anymore. They're for goodbye. Because after I write letter, I'm no longer consumed by my all-consuming love. If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcism. My letters set me free. Or at least they're supposed to.
People are blind to explanations that lie outside their perception of reality.
Maxon lowered his lips to mine and gave me the faintest whisper of a kiss. Something about the tentativeness of it made me feel beautiful. Without a word, I could understand how excited he was to have this moment, but then afraid at the same time. And deeper than any of that, I sensed that he adored me. So this is what it felt like to be a lady.”
“I never got to fall out of love. I just had to move on.”
People, you’ll find, aren’t usually all good or all bad. Sometimes they’re a little bit of good and a whole lot of bad. And sometimes they’re mostly good with a dash of bad. And most of us, well, we fall in the middle somewhere.
“I pictured a girl who made every moment, everything she touched, and everyone around her feel lighter and sweeter. “I pictured you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what you looked like. “And then, when I did know what you looked like, you looked like the girl who was all those things. You looked like the girl I loved.”
“You know, they say that there are countless saints who have nothing to do with Church and almost no knowledge of God. But they say God walks with those people without them ever knowing it.” His eyes are inside me now, followed by the words. “You’re one of those people, Ed. It’s an honor to know you.”
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery I must have now.
People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.
