“
There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.
”
”
Sarah Addison Allen (First Frost (Waverley Family, #2))
“
Ginny, listen...I can't be involved with you anymore. We've got to stop seeing each other. We can't be together."
"It's for some stupid noble reason isn't it?"
"It's been like...like something out of someone else's life these last few weeks with you. But I can't...we can't...I've got to do things alone now. Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He's already used you as bait once, and that was just because you were my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll be in if we keep this up. He'll know, he'll find out. He'll try and get me through you."
"What if I don't care?"
"I care. How do you think I'd feel if this was your funeral...and it was my fault...
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
“
A book is as dangerous as any journey you might take. The person who closes the back cover may not be the same one that opened the front one. Treat them with respect.
”
”
Mark Lawrence (Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor, #1))
“
Nico was devastatingly alone. He’d lost his big sister Bianca. He’d pushed away all other demigods who’d tried to get close to him. His experiences at Camp Half-Blood, in the Labyrinth and in Tartarus had left him scarred, afraid to trust anyone.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
Okay,' he said. He took a breath. 'What would you do, if you could do anything?'
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. 'This,' I said. And then I kissed him.
Kissed him. There, in the middle of the street, as the world went on around us. Behind me, I knew Jason was still waiting for an explanation, my sister was still lecturing, and that angel still had her eyes skyward, waiting to fly. As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that meant. But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back- leaving me astounded, amazed, and most of all, alive.
”
”
Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)
“
I'm going to die with Alexander's hand on my face, Tatiana thought. That is not a bad way to die. I cannot move. I can't get up. Just can't. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting. Through the haze in front of her she heard Alexander's voice. "Tatiana, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you like I've never loved anyone in my whole life. Now, get up. For me, Tatia. For me, please get up and go take care of your sister. Go on. And I'll take care of you.
”
”
Paullina Simons
“
Alec isn’t happy,” said Magnus, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Of course he isn’t,” Isabelle snapped. “Jace—”
“Jace,” said Magnus, and his hands made fists at his sides. Isabelle stared at him. She had always thought that he didn’t mind Jace; liked him, even, once the question of Alec’s affections had been settled. Out loud, she said:
“I thought you were friends.”
“It’s not that,” said Magnus. “There are some people — people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we’re all drawn toward what’s beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it’s only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver.”
Isabelle shook her head slowly. “You’ve lost me. Jace is our brother, but for Alec — he’s Jace’s parabatai too —”
“I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, his voice rising in pitch. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left—”
“Stop it!” Isabelle clapped her hands over her ears, then lowered them slowly. “How dare you, Magnus Bane,” she said.
“How dare you make this worse than it is —”
“Isabelle.” Magnus’ hands loosened; he looked a little wide-eyed, as if his outburst had startled even him. “I am sorry. I forget, sometimes . . . that with all your self-control and strength, you possess the same vulnerability that Alec does.”
“There is nothing weak about Alec,” said Isabelle.
“No,” said Magnus. “To love as you choose, that takes strength. The thing is, I wanted you here for him. There are things I can’t do for him, can’t give him . . .” For a moment Magnus looked oddly vulnerable. “You have known Jace as long as he has. You can give him understanding I can’t. And he loves you.”
“Of course he loves me. I’m his sister.”
“Blood isn’t love,” said Magnus, and his voice was bitter. “Just ask Clary.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5))
“
My sister thinks that she’s the only one who can take poison, but I am poison,' he whispers, eyes half-closed, talking to himself. 'Poison in my blood. I poison everything I touch.
”
”
Holly Black (The Stolen Heir (The Stolen Heir Duology #1))
“
I said, I want to tell you something.
She said, you can tell me tomorrow.
I had never told her how much I loved her.
She was my sister.
We slept in the same bed.
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary.
The books in my father's shed were sighing.
The sheets were rising and falling around me with Anna's breathing.
I thought about waking her.
But it was unnecessary.
There would be other nights.
And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you ... It's always necessary.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
“
There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like that it seems so simple.
No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived and then by some means or other, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'll mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection) but still unique.
Without individuals we see only numbers, a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With individual stories, the statistics become people- but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child's swollen, swollen belly and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, this skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted distended caricature of a human child? And there, if we feel for them, are they now more important to us than a thousand other children touched by the same famine, a thousand other young lives who will soon be food for the flies' own myriad squirming children?
We draw our lines around these moments of pain, remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.
Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.
A life that is, like any other, unlike any other.
And the simple truth is this: There was a girl, and her uncle sold her.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
“
you tell me
i am not like most girls
and learn to kiss me with your eyes closed
something about the phrase - something about
how i have to be unlike the women
i call sisters in order to be wanted
makes me want to spit your tongue out
like i am supposed to be proud you picked me
as if i should be relieved you think
i am better than them
”
”
Rupi Kaur (milk and honey)
“
Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.
”
”
Francis Weller (The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief)
“
I can hurt myself more than anyone else can," she told her sister. "I can do it with my eyes closed.
”
”
Alice Hoffman (The Story Sisters)
“
He’s like my wolf—dangerous, alluring and protective—but I can never get close enough or else he’ll bite me.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters #2))
“
And how I watched my little sister become a human torch. Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
So, what are you doing with my little sister today?” Daniel asked. I closed my eyes in defeat.
“I’m afraid I can’t ruin the surprise,” Noah said. “But I promise I’ll return her intact.”
He did not just say that. Daniel cackled
”
”
Michelle Hodkin (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1))
“
My sister and I are so close that we finish each other’s sentences and often wonder who’s memories belong to whom.
”
”
Shannon Celebi
“
While this is all very amusing, the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires,” she said. “Only that and nothing more.”
Jace’s heart started to pound. He met the Queen’s eyes with his own. “Why are you doing this?”
… “Desire is not always lessened by disgust…And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire your kiss, she won’t be free.”
“You don’t have to do this, Clary, it’s a trick—” (Simon)
...Isabelle sounded exasperated. ‘Who cares, anyway? It’s just a kiss.”
“That’s right,” Jace said. Clary looked up, then finally, and her wide green eyes rested on him. He moved toward her... and put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him… He could feel the tension in his own body, the effort of holding back, of not pulling her against him and taking this one chance, however dangerous and stupid and unwise, and kissing her the way he had thought he would never, in his life, be able to kiss her again. “It’s just a kiss,” he said, and heard the roughness in his own voice, and wondered if she heard it, too.
Not that it mattered—there was no way to hide it. It was too much. He had never wanted like this before... She understood him, laughed when he laughed, saw through the defenses he put up to what was underneath. There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him… All he knew was that whatever he had to owe to Hell or Heaven for this chance, he was going to make it count.
He...whispered in her ear. “You can close your eyes and think of England, if you like,” he said.
Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes coppery lines against her pale, fragile skin. “I’ve never even been to England,” she said, and the softness, the anxiety in her voice almost undid him. He had never kissed a girl without knowing she wanted it too, usually more than he did, and this was Clary, and he didn’t know what she wanted. Her eyes were still closed, but she shivered, and leaned into him — barely, but it was permission enough.
His mouth came down on hers. And that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past weeks went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Her arms came up around his neck and he pulled her against him… His hands flattened against her back... and she was up on the tips of her toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her... He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud...
His hands slid down to her waist... he had no idea what he would have done or said next, if it would have been something he could never have pretended away or taken back, but he heard a soft hiss of laughter — the Faerie Queen — in his ears, and it jolted him back to reality. He pulled away from Clary before he it was too late, unlocking her hands from around his neck and stepping back... Clary was staring at him. Her lips were parted, her hands still open. Her eyes were wide. Behind her, Alec and Isabelle were gaping at them; Simon looked as if he was about to throw up.
...If there had ever been any hope that he could have come to think of Clary as just his sister, this — what had just happened between them — had exploded it into a thousand pieces... He tried to read Clary’s face — did she feel the same? … I know you felt it, he said to her with his eyes, and it was half bitter triumph and half pleading. I know you felt it, too…She glanced away from him... He whirled on the Queen. “Was that good enough?” he demanded. “Did that entertain you?”
The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them. “We are quite entertained," she said. “But not, I think, so much as the both of you.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
“
Emma this is not a joke. Look at your hands! They're... they're... wrinkled!"
"Yes that's because-"
"No way. I'm not going down for this. This isn't my fault."
"Toraf-"
"Galen will find some way to blame me though. He always does. 'You wouldn't have gotten caught if you didn't swim so close to that boat, tadpole.' No it couldn't be the humans fault for fishing in the first place-"
"Toraf."
"Or how about. 'Maybe if you'd stop trying to kiss my sister, she'd stop bashing your head with a rock.' How does my kissing her have anything to do with her bashing my head with a rock? If you ask me, it's just a result of poor parenting-"
"Toraf."
"Oh and my favorite: 'If you play with a lionfish, you're going to get pricked.' I wasn't playing with it! I was just helping it swim faster by grabbing its fins-"
"TOR-AF."
He stops pacing along the water, even seems to remember that I exist. "Yes, Emma? What were you saying?
”
”
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
“
If you married me,it would be scandalous and innapropriate, and doors would be closed to you."
"Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
“
Closing The Cycle
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
”
”
Paulo Coelho
“
Sometimes it’s easier to be mad at the people close to us,” Vivi said, “than to be mad at the people who deserve it.
”
”
Holly Black (The Lost Sisters (The Folk of the Air, #1.5))
“
Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)
“
And there in front of her was Julian, his eyes and ears closed to anything but Livvy, her body cradled against his. She seemed a drift of fragile ash or snow, something impermanent that had blown into his arms accidentally: the petal of a faerie flower, the white feather of an angel's wing. The dream of a little girl, the memory of a sister reaching up her arms: Julian, Julian, carry me.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
“
What do you want from me, Crank?” Her voice was raw, desperate.
I looked at her. She was so close, but might as well have been a thousand miles away. I said, “I want you to love me.
”
”
Charles Sheehan-Miles (A Song for Julia (Thompson Sisters, #1))
“
It must be cool, having a twin, though.”
“Ah, not sure if cool is the right word.” He flashed a grin. “But we’re not twins.”
Out in the crowded hallway, Bethany frowned. “You’re not? Could’ve fooled me and the world.”
His laugh was husky, deep, and really nice to hear. “We’re triplets.”
Her eyes popped wide. “Holy crap, there’re three of you?”
“We have a sister.” He walked close to her, so their shoulders bumped every few steps. She found that deliciously distracting. “She’s fraternal and a lot prettier than us.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Shadows (Lux, #0.5))
“
Hannah had a playlist consisting of 308 love songs and not one of them could describe this moment accurately. Not even close.
”
”
Tessa Bailey (Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2))
“
On Stripping Bark from Myself
(for Jane, who said trees die from it)
Because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their 'how nice she is!'
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.
No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes
to embrace.
I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I finally understand.
Besides:
My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death – to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.
”
”
Alice Walker (Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990 Complete)
“
I stand there for a while, then sit cross-legged before it and bow my head. "Hi, Metias," I say in a soft voice. "Today's my birthday. Do you know how old I am now?"
I close me eyes, and through the silence surrounding me I think I can sense a ghostly hand on my shoulder, my brother's gentle presence that I'm able to feel every now and then, in these quiet moments. I imagine him smiling down at me, his expression relaxed and free.
"I'm twenty-seven today," I continue in a whisper. My voice catches for a moment. "We're the same age now."
For the first tine in my life, I am no longer his little sister. Next year I will step across the line and he will still be in the same place. From now on, I will be older than he ever was.
I try to move on to other thoughts, so I tell my brother's ghost about my year, my struggles and successes in commanding my own patrols, my hectic workweeks. I tell him, as I always do, that I miss him. And as always, I can hear the whisper of his ghost against my ear, his gentle reply that he misses me too. That he's looking out for me, from wherever he is.
”
”
Marie Lu (Champion (Legend, #3))
“
And then she thought that you went on living one day after another, and in time you were somebody else, your previous self only like a close relative, a sister or brother, with whom you shared a past. But a different person, a separate life. Certainly neither she nor Inman were the people they had been the last time they were together. And she believed maybe she liked them both better now.
”
”
Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain)
“
Love. What a novel concept.” He closes his eyes.
”
”
Oyinkan Braithwaite (My Sister, the Serial Killer)
“
I am illegitimate," she said distinctly, as if he were a foreigner trying to learn English. "You are a viscount. You can't marry a bastard."
"What about the Duke of Clarence? He had ten bastard children by that actress...what was her name..."
"Mrs. Jordan."
"Yes, that one, Their children were all illegitimate, but some of them married peers."
"You're not the Duke of Clarence."
"That's right. I'm not a blueblood any more than you are. I inherited the title purely by happenstance"
"That doesn't matter. If your married me, it would be scandalous and inappropriate, and doors would be closed to you."
"Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
“
Nightingale"
Did I wound you, mutilate. Take away your voice. Did I cut something from you. Leave you locked in silence?
This is what you do: you sing. Every part of you. Your locks of hair sing, your eyes, your hands, your smile. If I listen closely I can even hear your blood.
Was I the one that took that away?
Go down to the water where we used to swim. Stand under the sky at dawn when the sky is streaked with blood. Open your mouth and shout our secret to the waves. The ocean will be your voice. You won't have to carry anything alone. Little Sister, my Spring, April. Little nightingale. Sant at the edge of the water. Your voice will come back to you. Maybe. If I am silent.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block (Wasteland)
“
Have I ever told you how much you sound like Madoc when you talk about murder?” Cardan said, opening one eye. “Because you do.”
Oak expected his sister to be angry, but she only laughed. “That must be what you like about me.”
“That you’re terrifying?” he asked, his drawl becoming exaggeratedly languorous, almost a purr. “I adore it.”
She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. The king’s arms came around her, and she shivered once, as though letting something fall away.
”
”
Holly Black (The Prisoner’s Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2))
“
Is there no peace for the naked?" Sister Mattie wore a bed cap of sensible white lace.
"I think you mean peace for the wicked," corrected Lady Linette...
"Why would that apply?" asked Sister Mattie, before closing her door on both the problem and the noise.
”
”
Gail Carriger (Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2))
“
I watched my beautiful sister running . . . and I knew she was not running away from me or toward me. Like someone who has survived a gut-shot, the wound had been closing, closing - braiding into a scar for eight long years.
”
”
Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)
“
He is writing a book," said the King, following them out into the sunny, crisp gardens. "About the gardens here. We have two of his books already. Library, north side, O. What say you, Miss Azalea? Does he pass that list of your sisters'?"
Azalea cocked her head. Was the king actually teasing her?
"He'll have to shave," she said, deciding to take his lead.
"And what," said the King, stroking his own close-trimmed beard, "is wrong with whiskers?"
Azalea laughed, surprised at the King's uncharacteristic funning.
”
”
Heather Dixon Wallwork (Entwined)
“
...but you have to know when you close those doors, you don't leave anything for the other person.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Oceans of Fire (Drake Sisters, #3))
“
Chloe knew she was flesh and blood and bone, just like him. But she wasn’t alive like he was. Not even close.
”
”
Talia Hibbert (Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1))
“
You could say I am flawed. Marked. A malfetto. While my sister emerged from the fever unscathed, I now have only a scar where my left eye used to be. While my sister’s hair remained a glossy black, the strands of my hair and lashes turned a strange, ever-shifting silver, so that in the sunlight they look close to white, like a winter moon, and in the dark they change to a deep gray, shimmering silk spun from metal.
”
”
Marie Lu (The Young Elites (The Young Elites, #1))
“
You would think a person could only die once. You would think you would only find you sister's lifeless body once. You would think you would only have to watch your mother's reaction once after finding out her only daughter is dead.
Once is so far from accurate.
It happens repeatedly.
Every single time I close my eyes I see Les's eyes. Every time my mother looks at me, she's watching me tell her that her daughter is dead for the second time. For the third time. For the thousandth time. Every time I take a breath or blink or speak, I experience her death all over again. I don't sit here and wonder if the fact that she's dead will ever sink in. I sit here and wonder when I'll stop having to watch her die.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Losing Hope (Hopeless, #2))
“
I don't have room for serious in my life."
He stepped close and brushed my lips with his, then spoke in a low tone. "I want you to be serious about me,
”
”
Charles Sheehan-Miles (A Song for Julia (Thompson Sisters, #1))
“
Her hands quieted. "Yeah. Because even if the law says that no one is responsible for anyone else, helping someone who needs it is the right thing to do."
I sat down beside her, close enough that the skin of her arm hummed right next to mine. "You really believe that?"
She looked down at her lap "Yeah."
Then how," I asked, "can you walk away from me?
”
”
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
“
Just because you're naked
doesn't mean you're sexy,
Just because you're cynical
Doesn't mean you're cool.
You may tell the greatest lies
And wear a brilliant digsuise
But you can't escape the eyes
of the one who sees right through you. In the end what will prevail
Is your passion not your tale.
For love is the Holy Grail,
Even in Cognito.
So better listen to me, sister,
and pay close attention, mister:
It's very good to play the game,
Amuse the gods, avoid the pain,
But don't trust fortune, don't trust fame,
Your real self doesn't know your name And in that we're all the same:
We're all incognito.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Villa Incognito)
“
Sometimes the very best stuff can seem quite plain, until one examines it closely. It is only then that one sees its true quality.
”
”
Janice Hadlow (The Other Bennet Sister)
“
I liked having some time to myself. Our family was such a close one, you could get smothered. Of course, we didn't always agree with one another. Sometimes I quarreled with my brother and sisters, but I couldn't remember hating anyone for more than five minutes.
”
”
Gloria Whelan (Summer of the War)
“
Kate," he whispered, stepping closer to me, "you are not like your mother. You are a different creature from your sisters. The depths of your soul are fathomless. You are brave and loyal and true. You have such a good heart." he held my hand close to his chest and covered it with his other hand. "It is only afraid. But I would take such good care of it, love, if you would give it to me." He bent his head and pressed his lips to my fingers.
”
”
Julianne Donaldson (Blackmoore)
“
There was no way his imagination could feel the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parent and his sister had gone. No reaction.He thought of all the people he had been close to. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket two days before and felt a sudden stab: the supermarket was gone, everyone in it was gone! Nelson’s Column had gone! and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry! From now on Nelson’s Column only existed in his mind. England only existed in his mind. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him.
He tried again: America, he thought, has gone. He couldn’t grasp it, He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He’d never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, has sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every “Bogart” movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonald’s, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald’s hamburger.
He passed out.
”
”
Douglas Adams
“
Hannah, I can't answer what I don't know," he said through stiff lips. "What do you want me to say? Do I want to fuck you? Yes. Oh my god, I" -- his eyes closed briefly, those fisherman's hands flexing on the steering wheel-- "I want you underneath me so bad that I can't lie in bed without already feeling you there. I've never even had you, and your body haunts mine.
”
”
Tessa Bailey (Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2))
“
Hi, I'm Driggs."
"Damn, boy. You're even cuter up close." Cordy looked him up and down hungrily. "Got any dead brothers in here?"
Lex made a face. "Cordy, ew."
"Doesn't hurt to ask!" She peered at Driggs. "Now tell me, what are your intentions with my sister?"
Driggs became flustered. "Um, I don't know. To love her...and, uh...honor...protect..."
Lex went red. "Driggs, shut up."
"Awkward." Cordy beamed. "Love it."
"We have to go," Driggs said in an unnecessarily loud voice.
”
”
Gina Damico (Scorch (Croak, #2))
“
Jack? It’s Margeaux.”
“My sister? Why would my sister be calling me? How did she get my number? Crazy questions blipped through my head. I knew she had married and was living in New Orleans, but we rarely spoke and have never been close by any means”
“Margeaux?”
“I’m calling from the police station. Dad was just brought in and I thought I should let you know.”
“What! Why was he brought in?”
“Jack, he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He drove himself into New Orleans to Quest Diagnostic for some blood tests and he was waiting to be called. Apparently, they took other people back that had come in after him. He got upset and made a scene. The staff tried to explain that those people all had appointments and he didn’t. He became so abusive, they called security, but before they even got there, Dad knocked down one of the technicians. That’s when they called the police. They came and took him.
”
”
Behcet Kaya (Treacherous Estate (Jack Ludefance, #1))
“
I knelt and locked the door. I locked the door locking the world and time outside. I stretched my body across the mattress and Saskia drew in close to me and placed her open hand on my chest, her mouth near my shoulder; her breath, my breath blew out the candle, and I held my lost Wanderess with tenderness until sweet sleep overcame us.
”
”
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
“
Love is close to hate when it comes to sisters. You're as close as two humans can be. You came from the same womb. The same background. Even if you're poles apart, mentally. That's why it hurts so much when your sister is unkind. It's as though part of you is turning against yourself.
”
”
Jane Corry
“
It had been June, the bright hot summer of 1937, and with the curtains thrown back the bedroom had been full of sunlight, sunlight and her and Will's children, their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews- Cecy's blue eyed boys, tall and handsome, and Gideon and Sophie's two girls- and those who were as close as family: Charlotte, white- haired and upright, and the Fairchild sons and daughters with their curling red hair like Henry's had once been.
The children had spoken fondly of the way he had always loved their mother, fiercely and devotedly, the way he had never had eyes for anyone else, and how their parents had set the model for the sort of love they hoped to find in their own lives. They spoke of his regard for books, and how he had taught them all to love them too, to respect the printed page and cherish the stories that those pages held. They spoke of the way he still cursed in Welsh when he dropped something, though he rarely used the language otherwise, and of the fact that though his prose was excellent- he had written several histories of the Shadowhunters when he's retired that had been very well respected- his poetry had always been awful, though that never stopped him from reciting it.
Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire.
Their grandchildren had reminded him of the song about demon pox he had taught them- when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought- and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie.
With tears running down her face, Cecily had reminded him of the moment at her wedding to Gabriel when he had delivered a beautiful speech praising the groom, at the end of which he had announced, "Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back," thus vexing not only Cecily and Gabriel but Sophie as well- and Will, though too tired to laugh, had smiled at his sister and squeezed her hand.
They had all laughed about his habit of taking Tessa on romantic "holidays" to places from Gothic novels, including the hideous moor where someone had died, a drafty castle with a ghost in it, and of course the square in Paris in which he had decided Sydney Carton had been guillotined, where Will had horrified passerby by shouting "I can see the blood on the cobblestones!" in French.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
“
My angel-boy is close now, as in five-feet-away close. There's no way I'm going to burst into song in front of him. But then the contrary part of me says, you're going to let a boy keep you from singing out loud? Sing, sister! Sing!
So I do, and my angel-boy turns his head.
”
”
Lauren Myracle (Bliss (Crestview Academy, #1))
“
Summertime, I think, is a collective unconscious. We all remember the notes that made up the song of the ice cream man; we all know what it feels like to brand our thighs on a playground slide that's heated up like a knife in a fire; we all have lain on our backs with our eyes closed and our hearts beating across the surface of our lids, hoping that this day will stretch just a little longer than the last one, when in fact it's all going in the other direction.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
“
Our eyes adjusted; we gazed at what was in the room. And then I felt the floor pitch under me, as if we were suddenly at sea. George cleared his throat. I put out my hand to clench his arm.
Lockwood stood slightly behind us, waiting.
"Your parents?" I was the first to find my voice.
"Close," Anthony Lockwood said. "My sister.
”
”
Jonathan Stroud (The Whispering Skull (Lockwood & Co., #2))
“
It was late, and we were tired.
We assumed there would be other nights.
Anna’s breathing started to slow, but I still wanted to talk.
She rolled onto her side.
I said, I want to tell you something.
She said, You can tell me tomorrow.
I had never told her how much I loved her.
She was my sister.
We slept in the same bed.
There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary.
The books in my father’s shed were sighing.
The sheets were rising and falling around me with Anna’s breathing.
I thought about waking her.
But it was unnecessary.
There would be other nights.
And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
I rolled on my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.
It’s always necessary.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
“
Sebastian drew his hand away from his sword with a visible effort. “I said I never intended on harming her.”
“No, just hold her hostage,” Magnus said. “You want something- something from the Clave, or something from Clary and Jace. I’d guess the latter; the Clave has never interested you much, but you do care what your sister thinks. She and I are very close, by the way,” he added.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
“
Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He's already used you as bait once, and that was just because you're my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll be in if we keep this up. He'll know, he'll find out. He'll try and get to me through you.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
“
I hate you."
My sister said it different than she said it to my dad. She meant it with me.She really did.
"I love you," was all I could say in return.
"You're a freak, you know that? Everyone says so. They always have."
"I'm trying not to be.”
Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.[pp.28]
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
There’s a side benefit to this. We get to learn about each other, get to know each other, all over again.” His voice dropped to a husky near whisper, and he leaned close and said next to my ear, “We get to fall in love all over again, for the second time. How cool is that?
”
”
Charles Sheehan-Miles (Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters, #3))
“
No matter how many years passed or how much responsibility each assumed, they still managed to bicker like bitchy teenagers on a regular basis. In some way, though, each found it comforting; it reminded them how close they really were: Acquaintances were always on their best behavior, but sisters loved each other enough to say anything.
”
”
Lauren Weisberger (Chasing Harry Winston)
“
I stay back, because if i get close I'll have to roll him over and look in his eyes, and what if they're empty like Alina's were ? Then I'll know he's gone, like I knew she was gone, too far beyond my reach to ever hear my voice again, to hear me say, I'm sorry, Alina. I wish I'd called more often; I wish I'd heard the truth beneath our vapid sister talk; I wish I'd come to Dublin and fought beside you, or raged at you, because you were acting from fear, too, Alina, not hope at all, or you would have trusted me to help you. Or maybe just apologize, Barrons, for being too young to have my priorities reffined, like you, because I haven't suffered whatever the hell it is you suffered, and then shove you up against a wall and kiss you until you can't breathe, do what I wanted to do the first day I saw you there in your bloody damned bookstore. Disturb you like you disturbed me, make you see me, make you want me-pink me!-shatter your self-control, bring you crashing to your knees in front of me, even though I told myself I'd never want a man like you, that you were too old, too carnal, more animal than man, with one foot in the swamp and no desire to come all the way out, when the truth was that I was terrified by what you made me feel.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
“
One open, one closed. It was no wonder that the first image that came to mind when I thought of either of my sisters was a door. With Kirsten, it was the front one to our house, through which she was always coming in or out, usually in mid-sentence, a gaggle of friends trailing behind her. Whitney’s was the one to her bedroom, which she preferred to keep shut between her and the rest of us, always.
”
”
Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)
“
As soon as the door closed, Levi popped his eyes again. Bluely. "That's your twin sister?"
"Identical," Reagan said, like she had a mouth full of hair.
Cath nodded and sat down at her desk.
"Wow." Levi scooted down the bed so he was sitting across from her.
"I'm not sure what you're getting at," Cath said, "but I think it's offensive."
"How can the fact that your identical twin sister is super hot be offensive to you?"
"Because," Cath said, still too encouraged by Wren and, weirdly, by Abel, and maybe even by Nick to let this get to her right now. "It makes me feel like the Ugly One."
"You're not the ugly one." Levi grinned. "You're just the Clark Kent."
Cath started checking her e-mail.
"Hey, Cath," Levi said, kicking her chair. She could hear the teasing in his voice. "Will you warn me when you take off your glasses?
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl)
“
There are those from religious backgrounds who resist and oppose LGBT equality; some very obsessively and publicly. They make bold accusations and negative statements about gay and lesbian people, their supposed "lifestyle" and relationships. But when a son, daughter, brother, sister or close friend comes out it is no longer an "issue" it becomes a person. They realise everything they'd said was painfully targeted at someone they love. Then......everything changes.
”
”
Anthony Venn-Brown OAM (A Life of Unlearning - one man's journey to find the truth)
“
He is never going to be here, I thought. He is never coming back.
Was I okay with it? No. But missing him every day for the rest of my life was still easier than the fight Sebastian had: to stuff himself inside a box every morning and tuck that box inside his heart and pray that his heart kept beating around the obstacle. Every day I could go to class as exactly the person I am, and meet new people, and come outside later for some fresh air and Frisbee. Every day I would be grateful that no one who matters to me questions whether I am too masculine, too feminine, too open, too closed.
Every day I would be grateful for what I have, and that I can be who I am without judgment.
So every day I would fight for Sebastian, and people in the same boat, who don’t have what I do, who struggle to find themselves in a world that tells them white and straight and narrow gets first pick in the schoolyard game of life.
My chest was congested with regret, and relief, and resolve. Give me more of those, I thought to whoever was listening—whether it was God, or Oz, or the three sisters of Fate. Give me those moments where I think he’s coming back. I can take the hurt. The reminder that he’s not coming back—and why—will keep me fighting.
”
”
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
“
This business I'm in is different. It's special. The people around me feel like brothers and sisters. We hardly know each other, but we're that close; somehow there's been an immediate bonding between total strangers. We share each other's triumphs, and when one of us gets hurt, we all bleed - it's corny, I know, but it's true. I've never experienced anything like this before. It's great. It turns up the heat in life.
”
”
Johnny Cash (Cash)
“
Tell me,' I said. 'Tell me when you notice me.'
I notice you going into church,' Joshua said. 'I notice your hair, how blond it is. But how in some light it looks like it has red in it. I notice the way you smell when we're close. And the way you walk when we're headed home from church and your family gets out of the Temple first. I notice how you are with your family and how you hold your little sisters. I've seen you stand out on your doorstep and look across the desert. I've watched you walk toward the Compound fence and then on past that. You've been walking for years.
”
”
Carol Lynch Williams
“
In the interests of separation, Black women have been taught to view each other as always suspect, heartless competitors for the scarce male, the all-important prize that could legitimize our existence. This dehumanizing denial of self is no less lethal than the dehumanization of racism to which it is so closely allied.
”
”
Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
“
She’s beautiful to look at, she’s new, she’s clean, and perfectly cut. But then you get up and look closely and see that she’s not real. She’s a fake. She doesn't glimmer like a natural diamond or hold the beauty and unbreakable strength of a real diamond. She’s just a manufactured piece of glass. Not the real deal. And sooner or later, that pig headed owner is gonna realize that fake diamonds can never pass for the real ones, no matter how much you wish they would.
”
”
Bink Cummings (The Diary of Bink Cummings: Vol 2 (MC Chronicles, #2))
“
When someone dies they can be any age you remember can't they ' she asked. As I tried to think of a reply she continued 'You probably think about the grown-up Tess because you were still close to her. But when I woke up I thought of her when she was three wearing a fairy skirt I'd got her in the Woolworth's and a policeman's helmet. Her wand was a wooden spoon. On the bus yesterday I imagined holding her when she was two days old. I felt the warmth of her. I remembered all her fingers clasped around my finger so tiny they didn't even meet. I remembered the shape of her head and stroking the nape of her neck till she slept. I remembered her smell. She smelled of innocence. Other times she's thirteen and so pretty that I worry for her everytime I see a man look at her. All of those Tesses is my daughter.
”
”
Rosamund Lupton (Sister)
“
I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.’” My lips pull higher, into a livelier smile. “‘I am, I am, I am.’” With this, I step away from the podium, and I exit to a cacophony of journalists shouting and asking me to clarify. Adapt to me. I’m satisfied, more than I even predicted. Some people will rewind this conference on their television, to listen closely and try to understand me. I don’t need their understanding, but my daughter will—and I hope the minds of her peers are wide open with vibrant hues of passion. I hope they all paint the world with color.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
“
My grandfather was crying. The kind of quiet that is quiet and a secret. The kind of crying that only I noticed. I thought about him going into my mom's room when she was little and hitting my mom and holding up her report card and saying that her bad grades would never happen again. And I think now that maybe he meant my older brother. Or my sister. Or me. That he would make sure that he was the one to work in a mill. I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know if it's better to have your kids be happy and not go to college. I don't know if it's better to be close with your daughter or make sure she has a better life than you do. I just don't know.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
The Coven
When they break your heart, run to a sister who will stroke your hair and remind you of what you are. When no one else understands, run to a sister who will hold you close and heal you with the kindest words. When the wound is fresh, your sisters are the only ones who know how to enchant away the pain. When a man scares you enough to choke on your own tears, text your sisters and they will hex him into hell for you. This is what covens will do: protect each other from the world, for this is what sisters do.
”
”
Nikita Gill (Dragonhearts)
“
Then, Mother above, Nesta shifted her attention to Cassian, noticing that gleam—what it meant. She snarled softly, “What are you looking at?”
Cassian’s brows rose—little amusement to be found now. “Someone who let her youngest sister risk her life every day in the woods while she did nothing. Someone who let a fourteen-year-old child go out into that forest, so close to the wall.” My face began heating, and I opened my mouth. To say what, I didn’t know. “Your sister died—died to save my people. She is willing to do so again to protect you from war. So don’t expect me to sit here with my mouth shut while you sneer at her for a choice she did not get to make —and insult my people in the process.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
At the end of the parapet, a long black coat lay neatly folded on the wall. At the other end stood my sister and her lover. Tati’s arms were wound around Sorrow’s neck, her body pressed close to his, as if she would melt into him. His hands were enlaced in my sister’s long hair as he strained her slight form against him, white on black. Their eyes were closed; their lips clung; they were lost in each other. It was beautiful and powerful. It was impossible.
”
”
Juliet Marillier (Wildwood Dancing (Wildwood, #1))
“
A little thing, like children putting flowers in my hair, can fill up the widening cracks in my self-assurance like soothing lanolin. I was sitting out on the steps today, uneasy with fear and discontent. Peter, (the little boy-across-the-street) with the pointed pale face, the grave blue eyes and the slow fragile smile came bringing his adorable sister Libby of the flaxen braids and the firm, lyrically-formed child-body. They stood shyly for a little, and then Peter picked a white petunia and put it in my hair. Thus began an enchanting game, where I sat very still, while Libby ran to and fro gathering petunias, and Peter stood by my side, arranging the blossoms. I closed my eyes to feel more keenly the lovely delicate-child-hands, gently tucking flower after flower into my curls. "And now a white one," the lisp was soft and tender. Pink, crimson, scarlet, white ... the faint pungent odor of the petunias was hushed and sweet. And all my hurts were smoothed away. Something about the frank, guileless blue eyes, the beautiful young bodies, the brief scent of the dying flowers smote me like the clean quick cut of a knife. And the blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
I whisper, “I can hear our hearts breaking.” A tear wets my fingertips, his tears, and his other hand encases my face, the way mine does him. His lips nearly skim mine. “I’ll shield your ears from the sound of heartbreak.” My chest swells. “And what happens when I ache to hear your voice?” “I’ll whisper beyond every anguished sound.” He closes his lips over mine, once, before murmuring, “Tu m’entendras toujours, où que je sois.” You will always hear me, no matter where I am. He
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
“
Ginger, truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
“Forgive me for taking the idea from Kai, but I dare you to snog Blake—” She modified the request at the insistent stare from her sister. “Oh, come on! Just the teeniest peck on the lips.”
I thought she would still refuse, but apparently she wasn't one to outright turn down a dare. She turned to Blake and pointed a finger at him.
“Try to cop a feel and I'll make Anna's chair flip look angelic,” she warned.
He grinned and she leaned in, both closing their eyes as she pressed her lips against his for one, two, three seconds. It appeared innocent, but they were shy when they pulled away and sat back.
“Right,” Ginger said, clearing her throat. “My turn. Jay, truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Do you fancy Marna?”
“I'm not sure what that means, but if you're asking if I like her and think she's the most beautiful girl I've ever met and I wish she would move here, then yes.”
Marna and I giggled at his brazen, smitten openness.
”
”
Wendy Higgins (Sweet Evil (Sweet, #1))
“
Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-Three
She has no head for politics,
craves good jewelry, trusts too readily,
marries too early. Then
one by one she sends away her friends
and stands apart, smug sapphire,
her answer to everything a slender
zero, a silent shrug--and every day
still hears me say she'll never be pretty.
Instead she reads novels, instead her belt
matches her shoes. She is master
of the condolence letter, and knows
how to please a man with her mouth:
Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set,
hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red,
nor the glossy black her younger sister has,
the little raven I loved best.
”
”
Deborah Garrison (A Working Girl Can't Win)
“
One by one the angels had come to the top of Har Megiddo where I sat, holding her body close to mine after she'd died. I'd fought alongside them in battle, but up close, when they stood quietly watching us, they looked as beautiful as they looked unreal. the angels weren't supposed to feel emotions, but they were all weeping. All of them. Their tear stained their flawless faces like rain running in rivulets across stone. Azrael was the only one of then who came to me, knelt in front of me and took her from my arms. He was the angel of death come to carry his sister home. I din't want to give her up, knowing it would be the last time I ever saw her face. I had died on that wretched hill with her.
”
”
Courtney Allison Moulton (Shadows in the Silence (Angelfire, #3))
“
Lindsey took my father's hand and watched his face for movement. My sister was growing up before my eyes. I listened as she whispered the words he had sung to the two of us before Buckley was born:
Stones and bones;
snow and frost
seeds and beansand polliwogs.
Paths and twigs, assorted kisses,
We all who knowwho Daddy misses!
His two little frogs of girls, that's who.
They know where they are, do you, do you?
When her eyes closed and they both slept silently together, I whispered to them:
Stones and bones;
snow and frost;
seeds and beans and polliwogs.
Paths and twigs, assorted kisses,
We all know who Susie misses.....
”
”
Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)
“
Sisters forever,” Violetta declared, in her tiny, young voice.
Until death, even in death, even beyond.
“I love you,” Violetta says, hanging fiercely on to me even as my strength dies.
I love you too. I lean against her, exhausted. “Violetta,” I murmur. I feel strange, delirious, as if a fever had wrapped me in a dream. Words emerge, faint and ethereal, from someone who reminds me of myself, but I can no longer be sure I am still here.
Am I good? I am trying to ask her.
Tears fall from Violetta’s eyes. She says nothing. Perhaps she can no longer hear me. I am small in this moment, turning smaller. My lips can barely move.
After a lifetime of darkness, I want to leave something behind that is made of light.
Both of her hands cup my face. Violetta stares at me with a look of determination, and then she brings me to her and hugs me close. “You are a light,” she replies gently. “And when you shine, you shine bright.
”
”
Marie Lu (The Midnight Star (The Young Elites, #3))
“
Have you talked to her recently?”
I shook my head. “You?”
“No.” He turned around and took a step forward just as he made it to the counter. Over his shoulder, he asked, “Did you not tell her we’re partners then?”
Shit. “No.” I paused. I had assumed he would. “You haven’t told her either?”
“No.”
“Your parents?”
“They’re in Russia. I haven’t spoken to them since worlds. Mother has sent me a few picture messages, but that’s been all our communication.”
Double shit. “I thought you would have told them.”
“I thought you would have told Karina.”
“I don’t talk to her as much as I used to. She’s busy with medical school.”
I could only manage to see the back of Ivan’s head as he nodded, slowly and thoughtfully, like he was thinking the same thing I was. And his next words confirmed it. “She’s going to kill us.”
Because she was. She sure as fuck was.
“Call her and tell her,” I tried to throw it on him.
“You call and tell her,” he scoffed, not looking at me.
I poked him in the back. “She’s your sister.”
“She’s your only friend.”
“Asshole,” I muttered. “Let’s flip a coin to see who should do it.”
That time he did glance at me. “No.”
No. Ass.
“I’m not doing it.”
“Me neither.”
“Don’t be a pussy and do it,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low.
His snicker made me frown. “Sounds like I’m not the only pussy,” he returned.
I opened my mouth and closed it. He got me. He fucking got me.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (From Lukov with Love)
“
GO BACK TO DALLAS!” the man sitting somewhere behind us yelled again, and the hold Aiden still had on the back of my neck tightened imperceptibly.
“Don’t bother, Van,” he demanded, pokerfaced.
“I’m not going to say anything,” I said, even as I reached up with the hand furthest away from him and put it behind my head, extending my middle finger in hopes that the idiot yelling would see it.
Those brown eyes blinked. “You just flipped him off, didn’t you?”
Yeah, my mouth dropped open. “How do you know when I do that?” My tone was just as astonished as it should be.
“I know everything.” He said it like he really believed it.
I groaned and cast him a long look. “You really want to play this game?”
“I play games for a living, Van.”
I couldn’t stand him sometimes. My eyes crossed in annoyance. “When is my birthday?”
He stared at me.
“See?”
“March third, Muffin.”
What in the hell?
“See?” he mocked me.
Who was this man and where was the Aiden I knew?
“How old am I?” I kept going hesitantly.
“Twenty-six.”
“How do you know this?” I asked him slowly.
“I pay attention,” The Wall of Winnipeg stated.
I was starting to think he was right.
Then, as if to really seal the deal I didn’t know was resting between us, he said, “You like waffles, root beer, and Dr. Pepper. You only drink light beer. You put cinnamon in your coffee. You eat too much cheese. Your left knee always aches. You have three sisters I hope I never meet and one brother. You were born in El Paso. You’re obsessed with your work. You start picking at the corner of your eye when you feel uncomfortable or fool around with your glasses. You can’t see things up close, and you’re terrified of the dark.” He raised those thick eyebrows. “Anything else?”
Yeah, I only managed to say one word. “No.” How did he know all this stuff? How? Unsure of how I was feeling, I coughed and started to reach up to mess with my glasses before I realized what I was doing and snuck my hand under my thigh, ignoring the knowing look on Aiden’s dumb face. “I know a lot about you too. Don’t think you’re cool or special.”
“I know, Van.” His thumb massaged me again for all of about three seconds. “You know more about me than anyone else does.”
A sudden memory of the night in my bed where he’d admitted his fear as a kid pecked at my brain, relaxing me, making me smile. “I really do, don’t I?”
The expression on his face was like he was torn between being okay with the idea and being completely against it.
Leaning in close to him again, I winked. “I’m taking your love of MILF porn to the grave with me, don’t worry.”
He stared at me, unblinking, unflinching. And then: “I’ll cut the power at the house when you’re in the shower,” he said so evenly, so crisply, it took me a second to realize he was threatening me…
And when it finally did hit me, I burst out laughing, smacking his inner thigh without thinking twice about it. “Who does that?”
Aiden Graves, husband of mine, said it, “Me.”
Then the words were out of my mouth before I could control them. “And you know what I’ll do? I’ll go sneak into bed with you, so ha.”
What the hell had I just said? What in the ever-loving hell had I just said?
“If you think I’m supposed to be scared…” He leaned forward so our faces were only a couple of inches away. The hand on my neck and the finger pads lining the back of my ear stayed where they were. “I’m not
”
”
Mariana Zapata (The Wall of Winnipeg and Me)
“
The Power of the Dog
by Rudyard Kipling
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in--Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
”
”
Rudyard Kipling (Collected Dog Stories)
“
You were in business making meth? Do you have any idea what that drug does to people?"
We weren't givin' it away," Concise snaps. "If someone was fool enough to mess himself up, that was his problem."
I shake my head, disgusted. "If you build it, they will come."
If you build it," Concise says, "you cover your rent. If you build it, you pay off the loan sharks. If you build it, you put shoes on your kid's feet and food in his belly and maybe even show up every now and then with a toy that every other goddamn kid in the school already has." He looks up at me. "If you build it, maybe your son don't have to, when he grow up."
It is amazing -- the secrets you can keep, even when you are living in close quarters. "You didn't tell me."
Concise gets up and braces his hands against the upper bunk. "His mama OD'd. He lives with her sister, who can't always be bothered to take care of him. I try to send money so that I know he's eatin' breakfast and gettin' school lunch tickets. I got a little bank account for him, too. Jus' in case he don't want to be part of a street gang, you know? Jus' in case he want to be an astronaut or a football player or somethin'." He digs out a small notebook from his bunk. "I'm writin' him. A diary, like. So he know who his daddy is, by the time he learn to read."
It is always easier to judge someone than to figure out what might have pushed him to the point where he might do something illegal or morally reprehensible, because he honestly believes he'll be better off. The police will dismiss Wilton Reynolds as a drug dealer and celebrate one more criminal permanently removed from society. A middle-class father who meets Concise on the street, with his tough talk and his shaved head, will steer clear of him, never guessing that he, to, has a little boy waiting for him at home. The people who read about me in the paper, stealing my daughter during a custody visit, will assume I am the worst sort of nightmare.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Vanishing Acts)
“
What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked.
She looked nervously down at the papers in her hand even though I knew for a fact she had memorized every word.
“When I was eleven I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when the recruiters came to see me. They showed me brochures and told me they were impressed by my test scores and asked if I was ready to be challenged. And I said yes. Because that was what a Gallagher Girl was to me then, a student at the toughest school in the world.”
She took a deep breath and talked on.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked again. “When I was thirteen I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when Dr. Fibs allowed me to start doing my own experiments in the lab. I could go anywhere—make anything. Do anything my mind could dream up. Because I was a Gallagher Girl. And, to me, that meant I was the future.”
Liz took another deep breath.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” This time, when Liz asked it, her voice cracked. “When I was seventeen I stood on a dark street in Washington, D.C., and watched one Gallagher Girl literally jump in front of a bullet to save the life of another. I saw a group of women gather around a girl whom they had never met, telling the world that if any harm was to come to their sister, it had to go through them first.”
Liz straightened. She no longer had to look down at her paper as she said, “What is a Gallagher Girl? I’m eighteen now, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t really know the answer to that question. Maybe she is destined to be our first international graduate and take her rightful place among Her Majesty’s Secret Service with MI6.”
I glanced to my right and, call me crazy, but I could have sworn Rebecca Baxter was crying.
“Maybe she is someone who chooses to give back, to serve her life protecting others just as someone once protected her.”
Macey smirked but didn’t cry. I got the feeling that Macey McHenry might never cry again.
“Who knows?” Liz asked. “Maybe she’s an undercover journalist.” I glanced at Tina Walters. “An FBI agent.” Eva Alvarez beamed. “A code breaker.” Kim Lee smiled. “A queen.” I thought of little Amirah and knew somehow that she’d be okay.
“Maybe she’s even a college student.” Liz looked right at me. “Or maybe she’s so much more.”
Then Liz went quiet for a moment. She too looked up at the place where the mansion used to stand.
“You know, there was a time when I thought that the Gallagher Academy was made of stone and wood, Grand Halls and high-tech labs. When I thought it was bulletproof, hack-proof, and…yes…fireproof. And I stand before you today happy for the reminder that none of those things are true. Yes, I really am. Because I know now that a Gallagher Girl is not someone who draws her power from that building. I know now with scientific certainty that it is the other way around.”
A hushed awe descended over the already quiet crowd as she said this. Maybe it was the gravity of her words and what they meant, but for me personally, I like to think it was Gilly looking down, smiling at us all.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked one final time. “She’s a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: A Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.”
Thunderous, raucous applause filled the student section.
Liz smiled and wiped her eyes. She leaned close to the microphone.
“And, most of all, she is my sister.
”
”
Ally Carter (United We Spy (Gallagher Girls, #6))
“
Who else knows about this besides us?”
“Just Patti...”
“Okay. That should be okay. Is that it?”
“And Kaidan,” I added. My eyes darted everywhere but his face. I was in for it.
“Who?” There was an edge to his voice.
His eyes searched mine. I didn't want to tell him a single thing about Kaidan. I knew how it would sound. I took my hands from his, pulling the braid over my shoulder to mess with it.
“He's my friend. He's the one who drove me here to see you.”
“You told some human kid?”
I coughed, buying time. “He's Neph, too.”
Jonathan LaGray went rigid and his ruddy cheeks paled. I squirmed as his eyes bored into mine.
“Which one's his father?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Richard Rowe. I guess you'd know him as Pharzuph.”
Oh, boy. He wasn't pale anymore.
“You came across the country—”
“Shhh!” I warned him as people looked over. He lowered his voice to a shouted whisper.
“-with the son of the Duke of Lust? Son of a—”
He pounded a fist down on the table and a guard stepped toward us. I waved and nodded at the man, trying to reassure him it was fine, and my father pulled his balled hands down into his lap. After a moment the guard walked back to the wall and looked away.
“Don't worry!” I whispered. “I told you; we're just friends.”
He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with his fingers to calm his temper.
“You tell him that his father is never to know about you or whatever Sister Ruth tells you. Understand?”
“He would never tell his father anything. But, um...” I swallowed. “Unfortunately, Pharzuph already knows about me.”
His eyes flashed red again and it nearly stopped my heart. I pressed my back into the seat, causing it to wobble.
“Aren't you worried people will see your eyes when you do that?” I asked, sure that my own eyes were gigantic at that moment.
“Humans can't see it. And don't try to change the subject. I know Pharzuph,” he growled. “He's a real bastard on earth and in hell. He'd do anything to gain favour.”
“Kaidan thinks he'll forget about me if I lie low.”
“Maybe momentarily, while he's busy or distracted with his work, but you'll cross his mind again someday.
”
”
Wendy Higgins (Sweet Evil (Sweet, #1))
“
Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills. (last lines)
”
”
Kate Chopin (The Story of an Hour)
“
In the Land under the Hill, in the Time Before …
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful lady of the Seelie Court who lost her heart to the son of an angel.
Once upon a time, there were two boys come to the land of Faerie, brothers noble and bold. One brother caught a glimpse of the fair lady and, thunderstruck by her beauty, pledged himself to her. Pledged himself to stay. This was the boy Andrew. His brother, the boy Arthur, would not leave his side.
And so the boys stayed beneath the hill, and Andrew loved the lady, and Arthur despised her.
And so the lady kept her boy close to her side, kept this beautiful creature who swore his fealty to her, and when her sister lay claim to the other, the lady let him be taken away, for he was nothing.
She gave Andrew a silver chain to wear around his neck, a token of her love, and she taught him the ways of the Fair Folk. She danced with him in revels beneath starry skies. She fed him moonshine and showed him how to give way to the wild.
Some nights they heard Arthur’s screams, and she told him it was an animal in pain, and pain was in an animal’s nature.
She did not lie, for she could not lie.
Humans are animals.
Pain is their nature.
For seven years they lived in joy. She owned his heart, and he hers, and somewhere, beyond, Arthur screamed and screamed. Andrew didn’t know; the lady didn’t care; and so they were happy.
Until the day one brother discovered the truth of the other.
The lady thought her lover would go mad with the grief of it and the guilt. And so, because she loved the boy, she wove him a story of deceitful truths, the story he would want to believe. That he had been ensorcelled to love her; that he had never betrayed his brother; that he was only a slave; that these seven years of love had been a lie.
The lady set the useless brother free and allowed him to believe he had freed himself.
The lady subjected herself to the useless brother’s attack and allowed him to believe he had killed her.
The lady let her lover renounce her and run away.
And the lady beheld the secret fruits of their union and kissed them and tried to love them. But they were only a piece of her boy. She wanted all of him or none of him.
As she had given him his story, she gave him his children.
She had nothing left to live for, then, and so lived no longer.
This is the story she left behind, the story her lover will never know; this is the story her daughter will never know.
This is how a faerie loves: with her whole body and soul.
This is how a faerie loves: with destruction.
I love you, she told him, night after night, for seven years. Faeries cannot lie, and he knew that.
I love you, he told her, night after night, for seven years. Humans can lie, and so she let him believe he lied to her, and she let his brother and his children believe it, and she died hoping they would believe it forever.
This is how a faerie loves: with a gift.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Pale Kings and Princes (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #6))
“
Touching the copper of the ankh reminded me of another necklace, a necklace long since lost under the dust of time. That necklace had been simpler: only a string of beads etched with tiny ankhs. But my husband had brought it to me the morning of our wedding, sneaking up to our house just after dawn in a gesture uncharacteristically bold for him.
I had chastised him for the indiscretion. "What are you doing? You're going to see me this afternoon... and then every day after that!"
"I had to give you these before the wedding." He held up the string of beads. "They were my mother's. I want you to have them, to wear them today.”
He leaned forward, placing the beads around my neck. As his fingers brushed my skin, I felt something warm and tingly run through my body. At the tender age of fifteen, I hadn't exactly understood such sensations, though I was eager to explore them. My wiser self today recognized them as the early stirrings of lust, and . . . well, there had been something else there too. Something else that I still didn't quite comprehend. An electric connection, a feeling that we were bound into something bigger than ourselves. That our being together was inevitable.
"There," he'd said, once the beads were secure and my hair brushed back into place. "Perfect.” He said nothing else after that. He didn't need to. His eyes told me all I needed to know, and I shivered. Until Kyriakos, no man had ever given me a second glance. I was Marthanes' too-tall daughter after all, the one with the sharp tongue who didn't think before speaking. (Shape-shifting would eventually take care of one of those problems but not the other.) But Kyriakos had always listened to me and watched me like I was someone more, someone tempting and desirable, like the beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite who still carried on their rituals away from the Christian priests.
I wanted him to touch me then, not realizing just how much until I caught his hand suddenly and unexpectedly. Taking it, I placed it around my waist and pulled him to me. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't pull back. We were almost the same height, making it easy for his mouth to seek mine out in a crushing kiss. I leaned against the warm stone wall behind me so that I was pressed between it and him. I could feel every part of his body against mine, but we still weren't close enough. Not nearly enough.
Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere.
"Letha? Where are you at?”
My sister's voice carried over the wind; she wasn't nearby but was close enough to be here soon.
Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze.
"Have you ever been with anyone before?" he asked wonderingly.
I shook my head.
"How did you ... I never imagined you doing that...”
"I learn fast.”
He grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. "Tonight," he breathed. "Tonight we ...”
"Tonight," I agreed.
He backed away then, eyes still smoldering. "I love you. You are my life.”
"I love you too." I smiled and watched him go.
”
”
Richelle Mead (Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1))
“
I put both of my hands on the desk. 'Just tell me why you hate me. Once and for all.'
His long fingers smooth over the wood of Dain's desk. 'You really want honesty?'
'I am the one with the crossbow, not shooting you because you promised me answers. What do you think?'
'Very well.' He fixes me with a spiteful look. 'I hate you because your father loves you even though you're a human brat born to his unfaithful wife, while mine never cared for me, though I am a prince of Faerie. I hate you because you don't have a brother who beats you. And I hate you because Locke used you and your sister to make Nicasia cry after he stole her from me. Besides which, after the tournament, Balekin never failed to throw you in my face as the mortal who could best me.'
...
'Is that all?' I demand. 'Because it's ridiculous. You can't be jealous of me. You don't have to live at the sufferance of the same person who murdered your parents. You don't have to stay angry because if you don't, there's a bottomless well of fear ready to open up under you.' I stop speaking abruptly, surprised at myself.
I said I wasn't going to be charmed, but I let him trick me in to opening up to him.
As I think that, Cardan's smile turns in to a more familiar sneer. 'Oh, really? I don't know about being angry? I don't know about being afraid? You're not the one bargaining for your life.'
'That's really why you hate me?' I demand. 'Only that? There's no better reason?'
For a moment, I think he's ignoring me, but then I realise he's not answering me because he can't lie and he doesn't want to tell the truth.
'Well?' I say, lifting the crossbow again, glad to have a reason to reassert my position as the person in charge. 'Tell me!'
He leans in and closes his eyes. 'Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop.'
I am shocked in to silence.
'Maybe you should shoot me after all,' he says, covering his face with one long-fingered hand.
”
”
Holly Black (The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1))
“
The missing remained missing and the portraits couldn't change that. But when Akhmed slid the finished portrait across the desk and the family saw the shape of that beloved nose, the air would flee the room, replaced by the miracle of recognition as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and cousin found in that nose the son, brother, nephew, and cousin that had been, would have been, could have been, and they might race after the possibility like cartoon characters dashing off a cliff, held by the certainty of the road until they looked down -- and plummeted is the word used by the youngest brother who, at the age of sixteen, is tired of being the youngest and hopes his older brother will return for many reasons, not least so he will marry and have a child and the youngest brother will no longer be youngest; that youngest brother, the one who has nothing to say about the nose because he remembers his older brother's nose and doesn't need the nose to mean what his parents need it to mean, is the one who six months later would be disappeared in the back of a truck, as his older brother was, who would know the Landfill through his blindfold and gag by the rich scent of clay, as his older brother had known, whose fingers would be wound with the electrical wires that had welded to his older brother's bones, who would stand above a mass grave his brother had dug and would fall in it as his older brother had, though taking six more minutes and four more bullets to die, would be buried an arm's length of dirt above his brother and whose bones would find over time those of his older brother, and so, at that indeterminate point in the future, answer his mother's prayer that her boys find each other, wherever they go; that younger brother would have a smile on his face and the silliest thought in his skull a minute before the first bullet would break it, thinking of how that day six months earlier, when they all went to have his older brother's portrait made, he should have had his made, too, because now his parents would have to make another trip, and he hoped they would, hoped they would because even if he knew his older brother's nose, he hadn't been prepared to see it, and seeing that nose, there, on the page, the density of loss it engendered, the unbelievable ache of loving and not having surrounded him, strong enough to toss him, as his brother had, into the summer lake, but there was nothing but air, and he'd believed that plummet was as close as they would ever come again, and with the first gunshot one brother fell within arms' reach of the other, and with the fifth shot the blindfold dissolved and the light it blocked became forever, and on the kitchen wall of his parents' house his portrait hangs within arm's reach of his older brother's, and his mother spends whole afternoons staring at them, praying that they find each other, wherever they go.
”
”
Anthony Marra (A Constellation of Vital Phenomena)
“
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it.
Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem.
It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face.
I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now.
I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.
”
”
Dodie Smith (I Capture the Castle)
“
When he wrote back, he pretended to be his old self, he lied his way into sanity. For fear of his psychiatrist who was also their censor, they could never be sensual, or even emotional. His was considered a modern, enlightened prison, despite its Victorian chill. He had been diagnosed, with clinical precision, as morbidly oversexed, and in need of help as well as correction. He was not to be stimulated. Some letters—both his and hers—were confiscated for some timid expression of affection. So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes. All those books, those happy or tragic couples they had never met to discuss! Tristan and Isolde the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Once, in despair, he referred to Prometheus, chained to a rock, his liver devoured daily by a vulture. Sometimes she was patient Griselde. Mention of “a quiet corner in a library” was a code for sexual ecstasy. They charted the daily round too, in boring, loving detail. He described the prison routine in every aspect, but he never told her of its stupidity. That was plain enough. He never told her that he feared he might go under. That too was clear. She never wrote that she loved him, though she would have if she thought it would get through. But he knew it. She told him she had cut herself off from her family. She would never speak to her parents, brother or sister again. He followed closely all her steps along the way toward her nurse’s qualification. When she wrote, “I went to the library today to get the anatomy book I told you about. I found a quiet corner and pretended to read,” he knew she was feeding on the same memories that consumed him “They sat down, looked at each other, smiled and looked away. Robbie and Cecilia had been making love for years—by post. In their coded exchanges they had drawn close, but how artificial that closeness seemed now as they embarked on their small talk, their helpless catechism of polite query and response. As the distance opened up between them, they understood how far they had run ahead of themselves in their letters. This moment had been imagined and desired for too long, and could not measure up. He had been out of the world, and lacked the confidence to step back and reach for the larger thought. I love you, and you saved my life. He asked about her lodgings. She told him.
“And do you get along all right with your landlady?”
He could think of nothing better, and feared the silence that might come down, and the awkwardness that would be a prelude to her telling him that it had been nice to meet up again. Now she must be getting back to work. Everything they had, rested on a few minutes in a library years ago. Was it too frail? She could easily slip back into being a kind of sister. Was she disappointed? He had lost weight. He had shrunk in every sense. Prison made him despise himself, while she looked as adorable as he remembered her, especially in a nurse’s uniform. But she was miserably nervous too, incapable of stepping around the inanities. Instead, she was trying to be lighthearted about her landlady’s temper. After a few more such exchanges, she really was looking at the little watch that hung above her left breast, and telling him that her lunch break would soon be over.
”
”
Ian McEwan (Atonement)
“
I still stared at Daemon, completely aware that everyone else except him was watching me. Closely. But why wouldn’t he look at me? A razor-sharp panic clawed at my insides. No. This couldn’t be happening. No way.
My body was moving before I even knew what I was doing.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Dee shake her head and one of the Luxen males step forward, but I was propelled by an inherent need to prove that my worst fears were not coming true.
After all, he’d healed me, but then I thought of what Dee had said, of how Dee had behaved with me. What if Daemon was like her? Turned into something so foreign and cold? He would’ve healed me just to make sure he was okay.
I still didn’t stop.
Please, I thought over and over again. Please. Please. Please. On shaky legs, I crossed the long room, and even though Daemon hadn’t seemed to even acknowledge my existence, I walked right up to him, my hands trembling as I placed them on his chest.
“Daemon?” I whispered, voice thick.
His head whipped around, and he was suddenly staring down at me. Our gazes collided once more, and for a second I saw something so raw, so painful in those beautiful eyes. And then his large hands wrapped around my upper arms. The contact seared through the shirt I wore, branding my skin, and I thought—I expected—that he would pull me against him, that he would embrace me, and even though nothing would be all right, it would be better.
Daemon’s hands spasmed around my arms, and I sucked in an unsteady breath.
His eyes flashed an intense green as he physically lifted me away from him, setting me back down a good foot back.
I stared at him, something deep in my chest cracking. “Daemon?”
He said nothing as he let go, one finger at a time, it seemed, and his hands slid off my arms. He stepped back, returning his attention to the man behind the desk.
“So . . . awkward,” murmured the redhead, smirking.
I was rooted to the spot in which I stood, the sting of rejection burning through my skin, shredding my insides like I was nothing more than papier-mâché.
“I think someone was expecting more of a reunion,” the Luxen male behind the desk said, his voice ringing with amusement. “What do you think, Daemon?”
One shoulder rose in a negligent shrug. “I don’t think anything.”
My mouth opened, but there were no words. His voice, his tone, wasn’t like his sister’s, but like it had been when we first met. He used to speak to me with barely leashed annoyance, where a thin veil of tolerance dripped from every word.
The rift in my chest deepened.
For the hundredth time since the Luxen arrived, Sergeant Dasher’s warning came back to me. What side would Daemon and his family stand on? A shudder worked its way down my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself, unable to truly process what had just happened.
“And you?" the man asked. When no one answered, he tried again. “Katy?”
I was forced to look at him, and I wanted to shrink back from his stare. “What?” I was beyond caring that my voice broke on that one word.
The man smiled as he walked around the desk. My gaze flickered over to Daemon as he shifted, drawing the attention of the beautiful redhead. “Were you expecting a more personal greeting?” he asked. “Perhaps something more intimate?”
I had no idea how to answer. I felt like I’d fallen into the rabbit hole, and warnings were firing off left and right. Something primal inside me recognized that I was surrounded by predators.
Completely.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Opposition (Lux, #5))