Cassy Bolt

“Now I realize I’d rather be frigid than what I really am, deep down, every second of every day: weak, helpless, so fucking scared it’s going to come apart. Scared of losing everything. Scared of crying. That once I start, I’ll never be able to stop, and everything I’ve built will crumble under the weight of my unruly emotions.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Gradually, they draw back, and I’m left floating, drifting in a current of Charlie: his faintly spiced scent, the heat of his skin, the fine wool of his light sweater. A picture of my apartment flickers across my mind. The yellowy-red streetlights catching raindrops on my windowpane, the sound of cars slushing past, the radiator hissing against my socked feet. The smell of old books and crisp new ones, and the cologne whose cedarwood and amber notes are meant to conjure up the image of sun-soaked libraries. The creak of old floorboards, the shuffle of footsteps, half-drunken singing as revelers make their way home from the tequila bar across the street, stopping for dollar slices of pizza dripping with oil. I can almost believe I’m there. In my home, where it’s safe enough to relax, to undo the brackets of steel in my spine and slip out of my harsh outline to—settle. “You’re not useless, Charlie,” I whisper against his steady heartbeat. “You’re . . .” His hand is still in my hair. “Organized?” I smile into his chest. “Something like that,” I say. “It’ll come to me.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Iliked Lilith. At least she had balls. It took them, to stand up and yell at a bunch of vampires speaking a language you barely even knew.”
― Carissa Broadbent, The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King