havies_tea

“Repeat after me: I didn’t deserve what they did to me.”​
Rhemann didn’t know what he was asking; he didn’t know what this would cost. Panic chewed a line from Jean’s gut to his heart. He couldn’t refuse a coach’s direct order, but he could beg: “Please don’t make me, Coach.”
​“I need you to say it and mean it, Jean,” Rhemann said. “Please.”​
Please was so uncalled-for Jean could only stare at him, heart hammering louder than his thoughts. He could feel every chain straining, waiting for the words that would rend them powerless at last. He was afraid to open his mouth again lest he get sick, but at length managed a hesitant, “I didn’t deserve—” heavy hands, heavier racquets, dark rooms, darker blood, teeth and knives and drowning, I’m drowning, I’m drowning “—what they did to me.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Golden Raven

“Jeremy meant to laugh or agree. What he said was, “You look good.” When Jean went still as stone, Jeremy hurried to correct himself with, “It looks good on you, I mean. But I get it—not the most comfortable thing to wear.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Golden Raven

“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”
― David Sedaris

“It was Rhemann’s voice in his head, Rhemann’s and his friends’ and Neil’s, drowning out his miserable thoughts and excuses with unrelenting force. Jean squeezed his hands until his fingers went numb and willed himself to believe the words as he slowly spoke them into existence: “I deserve to get better.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Golden Raven