Kourtney

“I just wanted to thank you," he says, his voice low. "A group of scientists told you that my genes were damaged, that there was something wrong with me - they showed you test results that proved it. And I even started to believe it."
He touches my face, his thumb skimming my cheekbone, and his eyes on mine, intense and insistent.
"You never believed it," he says. "Not for a second. You always insisted that I was... I don't know, whole."
I cover his hand with my own. "Well, you are."
"No one has ever told me that before," he says softly.
"It's what you deserve to hear," I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears. "That you're whole, that you're worth loving, that you're the best person I've ever known.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“I was thankful to have Lucas. But it bothered me that having a boyfriend and being assaulted should be related, as if I alone was not enough. At the hospital, it had never occurred to me that it was important I was dating someone. I had only been thinking of me in my body. It should have been enough to say, "I did not want a stranger touching my body." It felt strange to say, "I have a boyfriend, which is why I did not want Brock touching my body." What if you were assaulted and you didn't already belong to a male? Was having a boyfriend the only way to have your autonomy respected?”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“Everywhere on this day, the after-war continues, as eternally as war itself,”
― David Finkel, Thank You for Your Service

“The judge had given Brock something that would never be extended to me: empathy. My pain was never more valuable than his potential.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir