michele ✡︎

“Tomorrow, if he tries anything, instead of assassination we give him a righteous ass-kicking.” “Here is my hand,” James said, after a split second’s hesitation. “The deed is worthy doing.” I hesitated also, a split second longer. “And so say I.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,” he said. “Because it is an enemy to thee.”

The balcony scene. Too mistrustful to guess at the meaning, I said, “Don’t do that, James, please—right now can we just be ourselves?”

He crouched down, lifted the mangled script from the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s easier now to be Romeo, or Macbeth, or Brutus, or Edmund. Someone else.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“But in Shakespeare's world, passion is irresistible, not embarrassing.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“Kneeling before me, he lays his head on my lap and says, ‘I’m going to ruin you.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa