I watch the ashes swim around like dandelion puffs, making swirls where bodies and walls once stood.

— Lauren DeStefano

I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.

— Lauren DeStefano

Jenna, standing in the doorway with her mouth and hand full of shelled pistachios, says, '"Real' is a dirty word in this place'.

— Lauren DeStefano

Just being alive feels so arduous that all I want to do is climb under the covers and sleep.

— Lauren DeStefano

Living in a place like this, she must have learned how to see all the monsters that can hide a person.

— Lauren DeStefano

Lovers are weapons, but love is a wound.

— Lauren DeStefano

Love unrequited is violent. He loves you so much that he's turned it into hate.

— Lauren DeStefano

Maybe it is desperation," I say. "Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love." He looks at me, and in the sunlight his eyes come alive with greens and golds. "Sometimes we can," he says.

— Lauren DeStefano

My father warned me that you’re an interloper. He told me I should make you leave, since we’re no longer married, and you’re not my concern,” he says. The thought gives me a chill. Yes, I’m sure Vaughn would love for his son to abandon me, so that Vaughn can swoop in and reclaim me the second I’m alone. But Linden adds, “I told him that wouldn’t be a good idea either.

— Lauren DeStefano

People die, and everything they've ever said just echoes around and around. There's nothing new. Only the same nonsense from their lives.

— Lauren DeStefano