Gallant

by V.E. Schwab

Home is a choice. Those four words sit alone on a page in her mother’s book, surrounded by so much white space they feel like a riddle. In truth, everything her mother wrote feels like a riddle, waiting to be solved.

A house in order is a mind at peace.

It tastes like spring, like bare feet in grassy fields, like somewhere warm and green.

They want you to look, but they can’t stand being seen.

Her mother, who has always been a mystery, an empty space, an outline, the edges just firm enough to mark the absence.

girls say love, but what they really mean is want. To be wanted, beyond the walls of this house.

I am so happy. I am so scared. The two, it turns out, can walk together, hand in hand.

Tired can be a kind of sick, if it lasts long enough.”

I am so happy. I am so scared. The two, it turns out, can walk together, hand in hand.

she simply likes the weight of sound, likes the way it takes up space.

If death is a part of the cycle, then so is life. All things fade, and all things flourish.