My grandmother was my favorite person in the world. She taught me how to sew, cross stitch, garden, paint, play piano (badly), and make grown men cry.
She was a bad ass wrapped in kindness and a gentle smile. She could devastate you and lift you up in the same amount of time.
She was the epitome of “the version of me that you get is based entirely on you” and she taught me to be the same.
When I was six, the summer after I had become obsessed with the idea of fairytales because The Little Mermaid had come out, I asked her if she had fallen in love with my grandfather at first sight.
This wonderful human being, this ray of sunshine, threw her head back and laughed uproariously.
“Dear heart,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I hated him. I hated him with my whole being.”
And that, friends, is the start of the most epic love story I’ve ever been told.
HOW OUR STORY ENDS is the (barely) fictionalized version of my grandparents love story. Some places have been changed, the names too. But the bones of this tale are right there for the picking.
She hated him. He was intrigued by her. And while he pursued her, he also changed for the better while he did so. They both did.
She learned to trust, and he learned to listen. They spent 60+ years together.
The modern day love story is a little harder to explain. It’s not real, but it could have been.
My best friend passed away unexpectedly in 1999, leaving me standing alone on a beach, waiting for the next wave.
If I’d never known him, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. He was my first love, my first loss.
My first regret.
Writing these two stories was in my blood, I just didn’t know how to do it. But as I was sitting down to plot the WWII era tale, I realized…
If my grandmother had never given me the tools to understand what real love felt like, I wouldn’t have recognized it as 16.
It wasn’t hearts beating fast, palms sweating, breath coming in short bursts.
It was slow and steady and warm. A slow spreading from your heart to the tips of your fingers.
That’s what I tried to do in this book. I tried to take you on a journey through both love stories that showed what it feels like to both truly see and be seen.
I hope I managed it.