Risaa > Risaa's Quotes

“the first time the caregiver saw it on the child. they said ‘no. don’t you dare. you will not grow up thinking you are unwanted. because your parents. chose themselves. over you. this will not be your story because it is not the truth. the truth. is your creation is not about them. you came through them, my love, they were your vessel. the truth. is you were born for you. you were wanted by you. you came for you. you are here for you. your existence is yours. yes. you will want them. (and on odd and warm nights they will think of you and hold themselves tighter.) but. what you do not get. from them. does not make you less. does not make you unwanted. (trust that all you did not receive. all you need. will come to you. in time. the universe is infinite.’) — a love poem”
― Nayyirah Waheed, nejma

“Of course there had been clues. A bite of the lip. An indrawn breath. Wrinkled brows and shrugged shoulders. A few false starts at conversations about work and balance, but the real alarms should have gone off when all of that faded.
Silence chilled like nothing else.”
― Zoe York, Between Then and Now

“If she’d had any doubts he was a real deal country boy, they disappeared when he unabashedly stripped down to nothing—the sun had kissed his arms to mid-bicep, although his torso wasn’t without a faint tan. She’d thought lazily that maybe he had a pond. She’d like to go skinny dipping with him. Leap onto his back and wrap her legs around his lean hips. Hold on to his broad shoulders and press her naked breasts into his back and drift into the cool water together.
As he opened his button-fly jeans, revealing snug briefs underneath, she’d whispered for him to stop. He was hard and sinewy in all the right places, with shadows and valleys she wanted to explore with her mouth and hands and eyes, but her touch first went to the line where dark faded to light on his arm, neatly following the curve of his muscles. “Nice farmer’s tan.”
― Zoe York, Between Then and Now

“There weren't any promises of a future life together, either, but he didn't need to live like a monk anymore. Two years was more than enough time for soul-searching and penance. As long as Laney was close enough to touch, to breath in, to taste like his goddamn last meal, he would take whatever she offered and not ask any questions about what it might cost him when she inevitably left.”
― Zoe York, What Once Was Perfect

“Don’t cry over me, Liv, I’m not worth it.” “You like to pretend you’re so tough.” She smiled, a delicate, shaky curl of her lips. “How about you don’t cry over me, okay?” He lifted their hands, still gripped together, and kissed her knuckles. “You’re totally worth my tears, baby.”
― Zoe York, Love in a Small Town

“She'd just had the best sex of her life, with an ex-boyfriend she'd spent the last decade pretending didn't exist, in his adorable half-finished, renovating-by-himself one room schoolhouse. Unsettled wouldn't even begin to describe how Laney should be feeling, and it didn't matter, because how she actually felt was pretty damn good.”
― Zoe York, What Once Was Perfect

“Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past. You won't be able to forgive yourself for not doing things differently until you stop wishing things were different”
― Zoe York, Love on a Spring Morning

“week. That she looked forward to those mornings…well, that wasn’t great either. But Rafe worked two jobs and lived in a tiny one-room apartment. And the other option for eggs and bacon”
― Zoe York, Love in a Small Town

“morning a week with her ex-mother-in-law. So she couldn’t fault Rafe for keeping his regular stool at the diner she worked at, even if it”
― Zoe York, Love in a Small Town

“mornings…well, that wasn’t great either. But Rafe worked two jobs and lived in a tiny one-room apartment.”
― Zoe York, Love in a Small Town

“them, together, in an orgasm-fest for the ages. What happened Friday morning could not be repeated. Not when she’d made up her mind”
― Zoe York, Love in a Small Town

“What are you, some kind of superhero?” “Nah, I’m just a guy who sometimes kicks ass for Uncle Sam.” “Okay,” she whispered. “So…just so you know, that’s superhero material in my book.”
― Zoe York, Fall Away

“I didn’t know you were my everything. I didn’t know I could have the worst day possible on the job and my only thought be of you. You deserve someone else, someone who’s smart enough to know all of that from day one, but I’m selfish. I want you all to myself, forever. And I’ll do whatever it takes to show you every single day that I love you more than anything else in the world. More than my job. More than my pride.”
― Zoe York, Love in a Small Town

“verklempt”
― Zoe York, What Once Was Perfect