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“Our lips were for each other and our eyes were full of dreams. We knew nothing of travel and we knew nothing of loss. Ours was a world of eternal spring, until the summer came.”
― Roman Payne, Hope and Despair

“You’re thinking, maybe it would be easier to let it slip
let it go
say ”I give up�� one last time and give him a sad smile.
You’re thinking
it shouldn’t be this hard,
shouldn’t be this dark,
thinking
love could flow easily with no holding back
and you’ve seen others find their match and build something great
together,
of each other,
like two halves fitting perfectly and now they achieve great things
one by one, always together, and it seems grand.
But you love him. Love him like a black stone in your chest you couldn’t live without because it fits in there. Makes you who you are and the thought of him gone—no more—makes your chest tighten up and
maybe this is your fairytale. Maybe this is your castle.

You could get it all on a shiny piece of glass with wooden stools and a neverending blooming garden
but that’s not yours. This is yours. The cracks and the faults,
the ugly words in the winter
walking home alone and angry
but falling asleep thinking you love him.
This is your fairy tale.
The quiet in the hallway, wishing for him to turn around, tell you to stay, tell you to please don’t go I need you
like you need me
and maybe it’s not a Jane Austen novel but this is your novel and
your castle
and you can run from it your whole life but this is here
in front of you.
Maybe nurture it?
Sweet girl, maybe close the world off and look at him for an hour
or two.
This is your fairy.
It ain’t perfect and it ain’t honey sweet with roses on the bed.
It’s real and raw and ugly at times. But this is your love.
Don’t throw it away searching for someone else’s love. Don’t be greedy. Instead, shelter it. Protect it. Capture every second of easy, pull through every storm of hardship. And when you can, look at him, lying next to you, trusting you not to harm him. Trusting you not to go.
Be someone’s someone for someone.
Be that someone for him.

That’s your fairy tale. This is your castle.
Now move in. Build a home. Build a house. Build a safety around things you love.
It’s yours if you make it so.

Welcome home, sweet girl, it will be all be fine.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“Ô, Muse of the Heart’s Passion,
let me relive my Love’s memory,
to remember her body, so brave and so free,
and the sound of my Dreameress singing to me,
and the scent of my Dreameress sleeping by me,
Ô, sing, sweet Muse, my soliloquy!”
― Roman Payne

“I’d do anything for her if she really wanted me to. I would even walk away from the chance of a lifetime if she asked me to... and I could even be happy about it.”
― Mirella Muffarotto, Soccer Sweetheart

“There is nothing like young love. It comes at a time before the heart knows to protect itself, when everything important is raw and exposed—the perfect environment for a soul-sucking, heart-crushing burst.”
― Alessandra Torre, The Ghostwriter

“Young love-making--that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacing are swung--are scarcely perceptible; momentary touches of finger-tips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life to another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“It seems to me if I were young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.”
― Kate Chopin, The Awakening

“Dear Teenage Self,

That guy you're crazy about,
Will ask you out
On a date
In about ten years, so don't fret
You'll get there yet.
But fate is cruel
On that day,
That feeling will have gone away.”
― Joyce Rachelle

“People say that teenagers don't know how to love like an adult. Part of me believes that, but I'm not an adult and so I have nothing to compare it to. But I do believe it's probably different. I'm sure there's more substance in the love between two adults then there is between two teenagers. There's probably more maturity, more respect, more responsibility. But no matter how different the substance of a love might be at different ages in a person's life, I know that love still has to weigh the same. You feel that weight on your shoulders and in your stomach and on your heart no matter how old you are.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Selfish little flower dancing beneath flames do you dare drift in this wind alongside me? Take my hand and let us see skies untouched by night. You are not alone. Never have, and never will be. Death is only the beginning, but our breath shall reign forever.”
― H.S. Crow

“Your soul can’t inhabit another person’s body.”
― Mirella Muffarotto, Soccer Sweetheart

“Don’t fret. We all experience it. We must. For despite our humanity love is the only way we can be like gods. It is in love that we glimpse heaven during our lifetime and have proof that there’s something worth looking forward to in the end.”
― Felix Alexander, The Last Valentine

“But seventeen is an inconvenient time to be in love.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“Sometime during high school he’d gotten . . . kind of . . . beautiful, and Harper found it easier to not look directly at him. When she did, it did strange things to her, making her voice high and her cheeks burn. So she only ever really looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, like one would look at a solar eclipse.”
― Summer Hines, Some Things Stay With You: A Windswept Wyoming Romance

“...summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longing we sometimes felt each other feel. With him life was routine; without him life was unbearable.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird: York Notes for GCSE

“Pero la persona que eres esta noche es la misma de la que estaba enamorado ayer, la misma de la que estaré enamorado mañana. Me gusta que seas frágil y dura, callada y chispeante. Joder, eres una de las chicas más punkis que conozco, sea cual sea la música que escuches o la ropa que vistas.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“Young love is common, but that doesn't mean it's not precious.”
― Eoin Colfer, Airman

“You don't have to, Henry. In here, I think my dream is big enough for the both of us.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“We had been younger. Yup, you can grow a lot in the blink of an eye.”
― Liz Thebart, Walk Away

“Beginnings are easy, but after that, happiness takes some work.”
― Liz Thebart, Walk Away

“Rolando pursed his lips and sighed. “Just be careful.��

“Why, because her father carries a gun?�� Isaac said. “Aren’t you the one who always said guns don’t shoot people?��

“No, it was you who said that.�� Rolando corrected his son. “I’ve said fathers with guns and beautiful daughters shoot people. Boys in particular.��

“You worry too much, dad.��

“One day, when you are a father, you will understand.”
― Felix Alexander, The Last Valentine

“He smirked. "They think it's sexy."

"It's not."

"No?"

"I assure you."

"Not sexy?"

"You look khila, like a half-wit."

"That hurts," he said

"What girls anyway?"

"You're jealous."

"I'm indifferently curious."

"You can't be both." He took another drag and squinted through the smoke. "I'll bet they're talking about us now."

In Laila's head, Mammy's voice rang out. Like a mynah bird in your hands. Slacken your grip and away it flies. Guilt bore its teeth into her. Then Laila shut off Mammy's voice. Instead, she savoured the way Tariq had said us. How thrilling, how conspiratorial, it sounded coming from him. And how reassuring to hear him say it like that-casually, naturally. Us. It acknowledged their connection, crystallized it.

"And what are they saying?"

"That we're canoeing down the River of Sin," he said.

"Eating a slice of Impiety Cake."

"Riding the Rickshaw of Wickedness?" Laila chimed in.

"Making Sacrilege Qurma."

They both laughed. Then Tariq remarked that her hair was getting longer. "It's nice," he said Laila hoped she wasn't blushing- "You changed the subject."

"From what?"

"The empty-headed girls who think you're sexy."

"You know."

"Know what?"

"That I only have eyes for you."

Laila swooned inside. She tried to read his face but was met by a look that was indecipherable: the cheerful, cretinously grin at odds with the narrow, half-desperate look in his eyes. A clever look, calculated to fall precisely at the midpoint between mockery and sincerity.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Cricket could tell Enkai was holding back tears, and wishing to comfort him, she took his hand. They sat in silence for a long time, just holding hands, and when Cricket heard Enkai sniff, she knew he was crying.
“You should go. You shouldn’t see me . . .��
“What?�� said Cricket at once. “Be a person? Have feelings? Here . . .�� She took a washcloth from the nightstand and dabbed his tears away. “I cried when I lost my friends. One of them died to get me here too.��
“I’m sorry,�� Enkai said, blinking sympathetically as Cricket wiped his face.
Cricket smiled. “No, it’s alright. I still see her sometimes.�� She dropped her eyes to the washcloth as she contently folded it and set it aside.
Enkai frowned. “You’re weird, Cricket,�� he said with a laugh, and Cricket laughed as well. “But . . .�� he added, “I guess that’s why I like you.”
― Ash Gray, The Infinite Athenaeum

“No,�� agreed Eldon, laughing as well, “but you always looked out for me. If I was hurt, you took care of me. If I was scared, you held my hand.�� Eldon paused nervously: Tobias was looking directly at him and listening with a small, fond smile. “I . . . always felt safest in your arms,�� Eldon went on sheepishly. He dropped his eyes to the floor as he whispered, “Nothing has changed.”
― Ash Gray, Wicked Witch Boy

“Did I hurt you?�� Tobias whispered, frowning.

“N-No,�� Eldon stammered. “It’s just . . . No one’s ever touched me like this before.��

“And no one ever will,�� Tobias answered.

Eldon smiled, and they kissed again.”
― Ash Gray, Wicked Witch Boy

“Love.
Such a sweet, simple word. A word I've been searching for my entire life - but especially since I met Eio - and I never knew it. Until ow. When I hear it on his lips, I know as I can never know anything else - no numbers, no formulas, no scientific names - I know it's true. A piece slides into place in my heart, filling a hole I never knew existed.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“And then Luke had appeared, like a gust that had come to teach me that in life, there was nothing more precious than life itself.”
― Liz Thebart, Walk Away

“Somewhere in between, I had fallen for that boy.”
― Liz Thebart, Walk Away

“He could not have explained the intensity of his attraction to {her}, that blissful ache that welled up in his chest at the sight of her barefooting across the dock, the feeling a distant cousin of nostalgia, as if he’d already won and loved and lost her.”
― Michael Knight, Eveningland: Stories

“The only place Aletta and I could be together unseen was just under the rafters in the church tower, a circumstance that propelled us into an earlier intimacy than what we would have known had we been permitted to walk together Sunday afternoons under the wide sky.”
― Susan Vreeland, Girl in Hyacinth Blue