kayla > Recent Status Updates

Maybe he was weak. Soft. Frayed at the edges. But was that so wrong? He liked that he was different from the others. That he hadn’t allowed death to harden his heart. That he cared. There was power in that. In caring deeply and feeling everything. It was his act of defiance. …He didn’t regret weakness. He clung to it.

Nothing more harrowing than moments you could never get back.

She had always been destined to love her and lose her.

“I never believed Dan Savage when he said “it gets better,” but maybe I just hadn’t waited long enough.”

“Good writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it requires a nurturing and motivating community.”

“I finally understand why people don’t black out. Sometimes life is worth catching.”

“I’m relieved at first, it’s just Ivy, but remember that danger mostly comes from the people we know, the people we love.”

“…but it’s been lumped into the pulp category because no one takes lesbian desire seriously. Maybe my own work has been overlooked for the same reason. Or maybe I’m just untalented. I guess I’ll never know.”

“Bad places have a way of streamlining these kind of thoughts, a way of neatly knocking off the thorns and burrs of conscience so that the arrow of violence can fly true.”

“Without writing books, I have no idea who I am. I’m half dead.”

“It startles me, seeing it all laid out. How the Tox models us after the animals around us, tries to change our bodies, push them further than they're willing to go. Like it's trying to make us better, if only we could adapt.”

“I managed three years without giving it a name. But there she is, Reese with her starlit hair and her wildfire heart, and I knew what to call this last night in our room, her face beautiful and strange in the dark. I knew the day I met her, when she looked at me like I was something she didn't understand. I've known every minute in between.”

“I think of the grounds, the way the pines have gotten taller, the way they seem nothing like what I've seen from the roof. In the woods the Tox is still wild. No girls for it to pick apart, so it got into everything else. Out there it blossoms and spreads with a kind of joy. Unbridled and vicious and free.”

“How could I have missed it? The warmth in her eyes, just mine and nobody else’s.”

“I’ve spent every day since I met her telling myself the wrong thing. Telling myself over and over again that she was cold, when maybe she was burning the whole time.”

“We shouldn’t be here. This place isn’t ours anymore.”

“…and how will we ever survive this if we can’t survive each other?”

“Our side of the fence is neat and clean like it was before—it’s only us that’s different.”

“I wonder whether it's some trick of the mind. When a place holds power over you, it looms large, and once that power is stripped away it appears how it really is. Just a room, or a courtyard, or a house, or a palace. Walls and foorboards and gates and archways. Building blocks. Pieces of a place—but not the heart of them.”

“My beautiful, brilliant Wren. What awful things she has done to keep us alive. To keep us from losing.”

“Awe is a common feeling for me when it comes to Wren. Any time I touch her, her beauty renders me speechless. The way her body curves and rolls beneath my fingertips astonishes me anew every time…

Wren has always impressed me, but this time, the wonder thrumming down my spine is different…

My awe is laced with fear. Fear of her—and for her.”

“I've experienced firsthand how desire can twist and corrupt a person. What happens when it lives untamed. Like fire, it destroys everything in its path. Like fire, it burns, until there is nothing left.”

“That if the cost of winning something is too high, it wasn't meant to be yours in the first place. Especially if what you're paying with is your blood. Because blood—like qi, and magic, and almost everything in life—is not infinite. But there is one thing that is infinite: greed. The ability of humans and demons to want. To desire. To hunger after things that don't belong to them.”

“…being vulnerable isn't a flaw. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world. If you were invincible, being brave would be easy. It’s the fact that it isn't easy, that we have to constantly work and work at it, make ourselves believe in our own strength even when it feels like we’re worth nothing, have nothing can do nothing... that's power. That's resilience."

“Fear is good. It means you care. And caring is its own kind of magic. One just as powerful as any dao I can weave."

“This is a language I understand. A language of pain and horror that I, too, have learned. That too many girls have had to learn.”

“Wren and I might not be Paper Girls anymore, but we are still capable of creating fire. And now we have a whole world to set ablaze.”

“But what the Demon King and his court do not understand the paper is flammable. And there is a fire catching among us.”

“I don’t want an easy life. I want a meaningful one.”