Hushed Willows Keep it real, right? I just wanna fuckin' feel right

It seemed that Reverie could not escape the Mayfairs. Mae's appearance brought with it a stirring of old memories, old hurts; Lestan, his curse, their curse, their suffering. That was all the world had ever wanted from them.

And Reverie —

She missed him, in spite of herself. The soft way he spoke, how he comforted her when she cried out in the night, his wordless attunement to the smallest shiftings of her mind and body. She loved Boone, truly, but she did not think he would devote every part of himself to her in the way Lestan had. Ironic, then, that she would not have taken her first husband back even if he showed up now, even if he came to her pleading for another chance. Not for lack of love or want. She would always love him, would always long for him in some secret part of her heart.

But she hadn't chosen Boone only to fill Lestan's absence. If she'd truly wanted him back she would have searched; waited; died alone, if that was what it meant. She might have done just that if Boone hadn't found her that day by the sea. But he had, and it had changed everything.

The way he loved her was different. A love that would ask her to change in the ways Lestan never had, though she'd known he wanted it. A love that would ask more of her than the simple fact of her existence. A love that would not leave her helpless, confused, floundering in search of a way to feel as if she had the power to do more than cause hurt.

She didn't know if she was capable; if she could be enough for him. Reverie felt that Boone would leave her if she could not, and that thought frightened her. There was nothing else for her but this. And sometimes it overwhelmed her, the idea that she must do better, be better or else lose everything. Sometimes she wished, against her better judgment, that she had died that night in the mountains.

Sometimes she did things like stop in the middle of sorting herbs because there were tears welling in her eyes and she could not stop them. Sometimes she sobbed into her forelegs, the sound echoing in the silence of her den. Sometimes she hated herself for wishing that just one person, just one, could look at her and see none of her flaws; only something beautiful. That was all she wanted. To feel beautiful.