Alessia

“There's this feeling August has had everywhere she's ever lived, like she's not really there. Like it's all happening in a dream. She walks down the street, and it's like she's floating a few inches off the pavement, never rooted down. She touches things, a canister of sugar at a coffee shop, or the post of a street sign warm from the afternoon sun, and it feels like she hasn't touched anything at all, like it's all a place she lives in concept. She's just out here, shoes untied, hair a mess, no idea where she's going, scraping her knees and not bleeding.”
― Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop

“Why do I have to tell a story?” I asked.
“Because if you don’t tell the story, someone else will tell it for you.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Inheritance Games

“Est unus ex nobis. Nos defendat eius."
She is one of us. We protect her.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Hawthorne Legacy

“It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there’s also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that tells me, “You will miss so much by being so guarded.”
― Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals