Christine

“I was dozing on the sand, drowsy from the heat of the fire, when Naji shook me awake hours later. I rolled over and looked at him. "You're alive," he said. "Course I'm alive," I snapped. "You're the one who keeps passing out.”
― Cassandra Rose Clarke, The Assassin's Curse

“I pity the woman who will love you
when I am done. She will show up
to your first date with a dustpan
and broom, ready to pick up all the pieces
I left you in. She will hear my name so often
it will begin to dig holes in her. That
is where doubt will grow. She will look
at your neck, your thin hips, your mouth,
wondering at the way I touched you.
She will make you all the promises I did
and some I never could. She will hear only
the terrible stories. How I drank. How I lied.
She will wonder (as I have) how someone
as wonderful as you could love a monster
like the woman who came before her. Still,
she will compete with my ghost.
She will understand why you do not look
in the back of closets. Why you are afraid
of what’s under the bed. She will know
every corner of you is haunted
by me.”
― Clementine von Radics

“You always wear that necklace," he said. "Is it another gift?" Though she wore gloves, he glanced at her hand - where the amethyst ring always sat - and the spark died from his eyes.
"No." She covered the amulet with her hand. "I found it in my jewellery box and liked the look of it, you insufferably territorial man.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

“He was silent for a moment, then said more quietly. 'But I know what you are talking about. I've felt like that before too. To be intimate with someone and feel not right afterward, too vulnerable and too seen.' He took a draw on his cigarette. 'I spend so much of my time not being seen. Explaining and quantifying myself.'

'Making myself small and unseen,' Madeline said. 'Unthreatening and unremarkable.'

'In everything,' Victor agreed. 'So, to not have to do that to be accepted without a fight, it can be almost painful. Getting what you want and not knowing what to do with it. I am good at being hurt and bad at being loved.”
― E.E. Ottoman, The Companion