Afnan

“He looked at me in a way that felt like being touched, like a blind man seeing with his fingers, mapping my bones and skin in his mind. I felt weirdly exposed. Seen.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“What do I think?”

“I’m not that good. I can’t read minds.”

Then read my body, I thought, but he only smiled.

“Tell me something.” He leaned closer, his voice raspy at the edges, charred. “If you hate human connection so much, why come with us?”

Because I don’t hate it. I hate how much I need it.

Because you’re the ones I was waiting for.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“Most of the time romance isn't even about love, anyway. It's about escape. Fantasy. Salvation from the mundane. Save me from boredom, from exhaustion, from my undersexed body, from microwave dinners and reality TV, from going to bed alone with a vibrator or a cat. Save me from my desperately ordinary life.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“The whole summer was inside of us.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“I wouldn't have to explain that I fall in love with minds, not genders or body parts.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris