Roses of May (The Collector #2)

by Dot Hutchison

it just hurts so fucking much in a way that doesn’t make any sense, because anything that hurts this much should be able to bleed out, should be able to be fixed and it can’t be,

A war needs an enemy, but I’m not sure anyone can sabotage me as well as I do myself.

How do you put yourself back together when the pieces permanently lost are the only reasons anyone’s looking at you?

There’s no Bureau requirement, no order, no generally agreed guideline, nothing official that mandates his presence at the funeral of a girl who killed herself because the seams where she broke the first time were too fragile to stitch together a second time.

Sadness and grief aren’t the same thing. It’s why they have different words. Maybe it’s a subtle distinction, but we don’t keep a word in a language if it doesn’t still have a purpose of its own. Synonyms are never exact things.

What was it Vic told him, back in November? Some people stay broken, others put themselves back together with all the sharp bits showing?

the wound that can only heal if it’s never, ever mentioned.

Because there’s the law, and there’s justice, and they’re not always the same thing.