Shy

“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

“Pop. How easily these monsters die in the end.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Golden Raven

“It makes you more interesting,” Jean said, and watched the way Jeremy’s jaw worked on silent protests. That he wouldn’t even defend himself said worlds to how disappointed he was in his thoughtlessness; he didn’t want Jean to like this side of him. Jean finally took pity on him and explained, “Not your capacity for unkindness, but how fiercely you fight against it.”​It wasn’t the answer Jeremy was expecting, judging by the look on his face, but this was not the time or place to get into it.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Golden Raven

“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