Rachel

“Let your life rest on what is already good.”
― Kate Baer, And Yet: Poems

“I stalked into the moonlit garden and lost myself in its labyrinth of hedges and flower beds.

I didn't care where I was going. After a while, I paused in the rose garden. The moonlight stained the red petals a deep purple and cast a silvery sheen on the white blooms.

'My father had this garden planted for my mother,' Tamlin said from behind me. I didn't bother to face him. I dug my nails into my palms as he stopped by my side. 'It was a mating present.'

I stared the flowers without seeing anything. The flowers I'd painted on the table at home were probably crumbling or gone by now. Nesta might have even scraped them off.

My nails pricked the skin of my palms. Tamlin providing for them or no, glamouring their memories or no, I'd been... erased from their lives. Forgotten. I'd let him erase me. He'd offered me paints and the space and time to practice; he'd shown me pools of starlight; he'd saved my life like some kind of feral knight in a legend, and I'd gulped it down like faerie wine.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“Names outgrow you, like a garden left untended; they don’t disappear with the science that keeps our bodies alive.”
― Amber McBride, Me: Moth

“She loves her lonely moments, the silence away from the crowds. When it's just her daydreaming.”
― Marie-Kristin Hofmann, Remember the wild girl