Cynthia Edge

“Love changes us. It strengthens us, and dents us, and lifts us, and guides us. If we sleep, if we suffer the side effect, if we're no longer shaped by the people we love... who are we?”
― Nikki Erlick, The Poppy Fields

“The thing about grief is that it’s never just grief. For Sasha, grief was also fear. Fear that she might never love again, fear of her unknown future. For Ray, grief was also anger. Anger at the way he’d lost his brother, at the place he blamed for taking him. And, for both, grief was also guilt. It was living with the question: How much was my fault? It was wondering what you could have done differently.”
― Nikki Erlick, The Poppy Fields

“I'm an undammable river of mother love. I'm a torch-brandishing one-woman mob, and I will go after anyone who casts doubt upon the rightness of my child. Even if that person is me.”
― Catherine Newman, Wreck

“This was the other side of love. This was the aftermath, the cost, the opposite end of the bargain. This was the dirty, damp confetti and trampled flower petals, stamped into the muddy ground and tossed about by the wind, long after the parade had ended. This was the sad, lonely echo in the hall, now that the dance was over. Here, in this room, was grief. But grief was love in its second shape.”
― Nikki Erlick, The Poppy Fields