Marci

“Eliza is family and each time I let her hurt me, I keep reminding myself that we share the same blood. I can never hurt her back. But not forgiving her is not me trying to inflict pain. My not forgiving her is not criminal. I'm hurting. Isn't that enough of a reason? I can't bring myself to ask for an explanation, like I did with James the first time. Stories are important to me. I like knowing other people's sides so that I can create my own best judgment. Yet some people's stories have a twisted way of distorting my own. Sometimes I see too much of one side and forget my own. I get guilty and forgive, thinking that I've solved the problem when I haven't. Eliza talks about her heartbreak, trying to answer the questions she assumes I have. I don't listen. I suppose it's selfish of me to close myself off because of that. But I so desperately want to be selfish. And maybe it's not even selfishness. Right now, I can't take her story and keep my own. Maybe one day, but not today.”
― Loridee De Villa, How to Be the Best Third Wheel

“It feels pointless. Even if he makes it back to Portland, stands on a cement sidewalk again, eats a french fry, he imagines a part of him will still be in these woods. Like a bit of fabric snagged on the leaves, he’s sure he’s already left a piece of himself here. Something he can’t get back.”
― Courtney Gould, What the Woods Took

“One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke.”
― William Shakespeare, Pericles

“I don't know what's going to come out of me. It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way.'
'Why?'
'To make up for it. To make up for the fact that it's me.”
― Suzanne Rivecca, Ugly, Bitter, and True