Jess

“Hayden bites his lower lip white. When he lets go, the pain of his capillaries reopening is exquisite, plush warmth flooding his mouth. Unintentionally, Horatio lingers too long, presses into Hayden's mouth with exploratory curiosity, and Hayden's eyes snap open, a low moan dislodging from his throat. Horatio? he thinks, and even in his mind his voice is edged roughly, hoarse from lack of breath and Horatio wants... He wants. He doesn't have the words for what he wants, but Hayden's mouth is parted and inviting, and he doesn't shudder away when Horatio pushes deeper, traces a sharp line across the sensitive skin of his inner lip, works at the clench of his jaw until his mouth is loose and open and spit-slicked with his own want.”
― Em X. Liu, The Death I Gave Him

“I'm going to live forever, Felicia."
Even before she laughed, I knew I meant it. And I'm not writing it again now like the early days, when I'd write to you because I felt guilty, because I thought I had to, because I thought I owed you something. I do owe you something, but I've learned better than to blame myself now. I suppose, all this is to say: thank you, Horatio. I know you hate that. I know you believe it. I'm going to say it anyways, even though my hand aches; I'd write it a thousand times, wear down all my tendons for you. Because I meant it, and even here, in this apartment I am trapped indefinitely in, cut off from the rest of the world by glass and steel through nothing but my own damn foolishness, I meant it. I do.
I'm going to live forever.”
― Em X. Liu, The Death I Gave Him

“I think I am an impostor. Twenty-seven years ago I was a baby. Before that I was a clump of cells. Before that I didn’t exist. How could I be a bookstore clerk, or a Catholic, or a woman, or a person at all? I’m a life force contained in the deformed body of a baby. Of course I’m a fraud. The fact that I’m able to carry myself through life without being crushed beneath the psychological weight of being alive proves that I’m a con artist. Aren’t we all con artists?”
― Emily R. Austin, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

“I want you to know me, Hayden thinks, I want you to remember me. I want to be remembered. And he does, he wants every inch of his body—this mortal, tremulous thing he is trapped in—to be mapped out and known, wants Horatio to tease him apart, visceral layer by layer.”
― Em X. Liu, The Death I Gave Him