Curtis Garner

“She made him feel safe and calm. He thought about everything she must have sacrificed to make sure he grew up into a happy person. Except he wasn’t happy, which made him feel like he’d failed her. After the years of her working and studying, of worrying about how he was being treated at school or wondering why he was being distant and evasive with her, he’d ended up miserable anyway. He felt overwhelmed with love for her, undeserving of her.”
― Curtis Garner, Isaac

“Low-quality photography showed Michelangelo chests harnessed in leather, feet in sloppy football socks, their soles black with dirt, or headless bodies in tight underwear, obscured by streaky mirrors in gyms and supermarket toilets. One boy posed before a row of Portaloos at a festival, wearing a flamingo-print shirt and round sunglasses, the pink lenses all but concealing pill-fed pupils. Others lay in their bathtubs; climbed up metal steps at lidos; stood before lakes, castles or famous paintings; sat cross-legged on wind-battered sand dunes; or pinched the Leaning Tower of Pisa between thumb and forefinger.”
― Curtis Garner, Isaac