inesa

“He put his hands on my hips. He was shy, all of a sudden. There was a second of feeling like two teenagers who had been set up by their friends at the school disco. We exchanged a well, look at us! expression, and he tilted his head, very slightly, to kiss me. And the kiss was like—what was it like? It was like finding your favourite pair of boots under the bed. It was like finding them on the last day of your lease, the boxes already in the van, having assumed that they must have been left at an ex-lover’s house, or simply vanished by your own carelessness. Oh, these. Oh. Oh. I love these. When I finally stopped kissing him, I put my arms around his waist, and laid my head on his shoulder. My nose dug deep to find the old smell, my hands on the rough denim of his jacket. I had missed him so much, and I hadn’t even known it. “Carey,” I said. “Carey, Carey, Carey.” “Darling,” he replied. “I think you’re a bit old to call me by my last name.” And so now, everyone I love is called James.”
― Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously.”
― Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

“Per aspera ad astra. I’d heard a variety of translations, but the one I liked best was Through the thorns, to the stars.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains