Delilah Green Doesn't Care (Bright Falls, #1)

by Ashley Herring Blake

Like an American Cate Blanchett, except more stick-up-your-ass and less queen-of-bisexuals.

Anything that matched the brand she was trying to build for herself—queer, feminist, angry, and beautiful. Niche.

Feminism, after all, was about equal respect for equal work, not ensuring a woman never baked a cake or fetched a cold one.

“Do you want to talk about this?” Delilah asked, breaking the spell. Claire huffed a laugh. “Not really, no.” “Then we won’t.” She didn’t say it like it was a relief, or like she didn’t want to talk about it in the first place. She said it gently, like she understood hard things and how, even though talking about them could be therapeutic, the words themselves were a labor and, sometimes, one just didn’t have the bandwidth for them.

Delilah was strange as a girl, cold and distant, but she’d lost both parents by the time she was ten years old. Wouldn’t that make anyone strange and cold and distant?

“Let the record state that I’m gallant as shit,” Delilah said. Claire laughed. “I feel very wooed.”

She didn’t. Delilah Green didn’t care. Because they’d never once cared about her.

But before he could get anything else out, Iris flew past Claire, her red hair flowing behind her like flames, and punched Josh square in the face.

“This is what I want,” Delilah said. “My whole life, this is what I’ve wanted. A best friend. Someone who gets me, who accepts me. Someone who fights like hell to get me to see that they love me. Someone who lets me love them back. Someone who’s so goddamn beautiful, she makes my toes curl. Someone who calls me on my bullshit. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone who makes me look at her like this and looks at me the same way. Someone who . . . who’s my home.”

“I’m putting you first, Claire. In case you couldn’t tell, that’s what’s happening here.”