Ashley Herring Blake

Claire represented a contradiction, the discomfiting marriage of beauty and pain.

She was going to act instead of all this constant, exhausting thinking.

Are we talking about the same woman? Tattoos? New York City attitude for days? A general disdain for clothes in any shade lighter than the ninth circle of hell?

I didn’t let myself understand. My whole life, I’ve waited to feel like this.”

Jordan’s mouth parted. “Like what, Parker?”

Another step. “Like this. The way I feel when I’m with you. Like I’m twelve years old and going through my first crush. Like I might explode if I don’t see you, talk to you. Like I don’t care about anything else in this whole messed-up world but what you think about me. Feel about me.

Officially having each other’s numbers—and in a much nicer context than demanding dry cleaning—felt somehow romantic.

You’ve convinced yourself you don’t want it, because you think you don’t deserve it.

You know, I don’t believe in writer’s block. If you can’t figure out what to write about, it’s because you’ve gone wrong somewhere earlier in the book.

Six months couldn’t erase six years, no matter how much Adri sometimes made Stevie feel like it could.

“Anyway, New York is . . . I don’t know. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that felt exactly like I expected it to, exactly like every story and movie and poem about it. Like magic and realism all twisted up together.”

. . . the kind of eyes you could get lost in, drown in, and never even try to take a breath.