Amanda Nemer

“I was a vase.
The thought struck her as she gazed at the wall of them. She had been a vessel; it was true. She'd stepped into this shop, introduced herself, asked for a job, hoped it would fill her.
And then, sitting with Jacob at the community table, she'd been a flower. Snipped from the root, quick to wilt, temporary. She'd existed to be lovely and to be chosen. No one had expected her to last.
But she hadn't been a flower when she'd gone to live with Claire, had she?
Emilie traveled deeper into the shop. She was in the addition now, its ceiling higher, its rows of tables laden with houseplants. Water, she decided. That's what she'd been with Claire. Shapeless, colorless, but necessary. She'd done what she had to. She had been there for her grandmother. She'd kept her family afloat.
But what was she now?”
― Nina LaCour, Yerba Buena

“If being bi means always knowing, well, that isn't me. The only girls on my bedroom walls are my friends, and I'm certainly not into any of them that way. That settles it. I'm straight. Just like I always thought. I wait for the feeling of a weight lifting from my shoulders, but it never comes.”
― Dahlia Adler, Cool for the Summer

“Just because you're telling a good story, doesn't mean it's the right story. And I think that it's really important to tell the right story.”
― Dahlia Adler , Cool for the Summer

“I think we’ve both waited long enough to turn the page in this story, don’t you?”
― Dahlia Adler, Cool for the Summer