Hollie

“But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it.”
― André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

“It was James who had an ego the size of a lake but a heart to match it.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“they asked "do you love her to death?"

i said "speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life”
― Mahmoud Darwish

“She can't die, and not just because there's a chance I won't survive. She can't die because I know I can't live without her even if I do. Somewhere between the shock of our attraction at the top of the turret to realizing she risked her own life by giving up a boot for someone else on the parapet that first day to her throwing those daggers at my head under the oak tree, I wavered. I should have realized the danger of getting too close the first time I put her on her back and showed her how easily she could kill me on the mat—a vulnerability I've allowed no one else—but I brushed it off as an undeniable attraction to a uniquely beautiful woman. When I watched her conquer the Gauntlet, then defend Andarna at Threshing. I stumbled, stunned by both her cunning and her sense of honor. When I burst into her room and found Oren's treacherous hand at her throat, the rage that made it so easy to kill all six of them without batting an eye should have told me I was headed for a cliff. And when she smiled at me after mastering her shield in mere minutes, her face lighting up as the snow fell around us, I fucking fell.
We hadn't even kissed, and I fell.
Or maybe it was when she threw her knives at Barlowe or when jealously ate me alive seeing Aetos kiss the mouth I'd dreamed about countless times. Looking back, there were a thousand tiny moments that pulled me over the edge for the woman asleep in the bed I always pictured her in.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing