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“Cora's eyes flick from the bagstravaganza to me, her eyebrows pushed together with the same look she gets doing the Sunday crossword. Like if she can just focus hard enough, she can find the solution.
But for all Cora's efforts, I'm one puzzle she can't fix.”
― Erin Stewart, Scars Like Wings

“Only an hour in, and already the first temptation: the warmth of my blankets and bed, my pillows and the fake-fur throw Hannah's mom left here after a weekend visit. They're all saying, Climb in. No one will know if you stay in bed all day. No one will know if you wear the same sweatpants for the entire month, if you eat every meal in front of television shows and use t-shirts as napkins. Go ahead and listen to that same song on repeat until its sound turns to nothing and you sleep the winter away.

I only have Mabel's visit to get through, and then all this could be mine. I could scroll through Twitter until my vision blurs and then collapse on my bed like an Oscar Wilde character. I could score myself a bottle of whiskey and let it make me glow, let all the room's edges go soft, let the memories out of their cages.

Maybe I would hear him sing again, if all else went quiet.”
― Nina LaCour, We Are Okay

“But that was another lifetime, one where spontaneous choreographed dances and happy endings seemed not only plausible but likely.
At some point, you realize life is not a musical.”
― Erin Stewart, Scars Like Wings

“It was the tick marks above my bed, underneath the bunk on top of mine, that got me thinking about when I'd last extended my hand to anyone. Or anyone extended their hand to me.
Someone who lived in the dorm before me had recorded their days at university like a prison sentence, carving into the wooden slats under Jarred's bed, and, one night a week ago, reaching up to run a finger over the tallies, I touched the gnawing in me. I realized it had worked its way around inside, gouging, for a while. It must be a hole I've carried since the start of freshman year. (Though sometimes I wonder if it carried over from years before that.)
Simple tally marks etched with a pocketknife woke me to my hollowness.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z