Page 1 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MARY

I am not so deluded as to think that love makes people weak.

If anything, a person falling in love goes through a metamorphosis into something softer yet sharper. Love introduces new tenderness while enforcing or obliterating boundaries you thought you knew. Suddenly, “I would never kill” becomes murkier, because if you had to, for them, wouldn't you?

You would, I think.

I’ve studied love for years, watching how it can recreate a person.

Love was the single driving force in my father’s life, the glue of my mother’s.

Love made my sister more careful, her husband more lethal.

Love has broken my cousin’s heart again and again, but he still won’t trade it. It’s why he keeps reaching into the flame, certain it will burn him, but hopeful each time he might be tough enough to withstand the pain.

I think love is supposed to fill the gaps of what you need most.

Love has never made me tender, though.

Something isn't right about me, everyone can see that much. Love’s never made me softer, never given supreme peace and contentment.

It doesn't pacify, it adds stress, a constant vigilance, a weight that is ever-pressing and unending. I’ve asked my sisters if they feel this way, but they’re better adjusted than I am.

“Of course I worry about them, they’re my kids,” Willa told me once while said kids practically drowned each other in the pool with their games. She yelled at them to settle down, then sighed, smiled. “But they’re such a blast, aren’t they?”

As recently as last week, I asked Vanessa how she could handle being in love with someone as clumsy as her husband.

“How do you leave him alone at all? What if he falls into a sinkhole somewhere?” I asked.

I meant, aren’t you afraid he will die tomorrow?

“He’d call me,” Vanessa said.

“If he leaves his phone at home?”

“He wouldn’t,” Vanessa assured, and slid a mug of coffee across the counter to me. “And if he did, someone would notice an inner-city sinkhole and get him out. I’m just as likely to fall into a sinkhole as he is. Maybe more so because he drives much less than I do.”

That did nothing to comfort me, but I dropped it anyway.

Neither of them are so constantly concerned about death as I am, or if they are, they think the joy of love makes it all worth it.

I have joy in my life, I do, but it’s in this joy where I find the most fear.

Love begets connection and allows for hurt, for loss.

Love is unstoppable, as far as I can tell. I've never been able to curb it, not when my sister put a tiny human in my arms, or when my brother-in-law wormed his way into our hearts with his bad fighting and worse clothing. With every person, it weighs on me, another brick added to my shoulders.

I think love has made my sisters lighter, or more sturdy—assured, like they have a purpose. But what of the inevitable loss?

With every addition to the family, the what-ifs double, then triple.

Loss is inevitable. Life—love—it's a game of who you can keep alive the longest.

So, love has never made me tender. If anything, it's made me into something brutal. A weapon.