Block Shot (Hoops, #2)

by Kennedy Ryan

Men are essentially boys. Just boys whose penises kept growing . . . some more than others.

“There will be men who fall in love with your skin and others who drown themselves in everything that lies beneath.” -Cindy Cherie, Poetess

If there are things I see that I want to change, I develop a plan to work on them. If there are things I cannot change, I work to accept them.

My relationship with food is more complicated than any relationship I’ve had with a man.

I’m not the smart girl. Or the pretty one. Or the whatever label people want to assign to me. I can be all those things at once.

“I don’t give a damn about odds,” she says. “Odds don’t tell me what I can’t do. Odds just tell me how hard I’ll have to work to get what I want. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel less.”

“What I’m saying is be unafraid to want it all and be disciplined enough to work hard to get it.”

“But the daughter of a lion is still a lion, and this is your domain.”

She is bright and good. And I can be dark, bad when I have to be. Sometimes when I don’t have to be, but just want to be. She is day and I am night. When day and night are absolutely equal, it’s equinox. Banner is my equinox. My equal. The revelation rattles around inside me, but my face, my surface remains smooth.

“I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities." - -Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar-Winning Actress

Every insult, every criticism, every word spoken against me loses its power in the center of his perfect desire. To be wanted like this eclipses all the times I wasn’t—all the times I felt unworthy. It billows from me, and I feel so completely free.