Mari Belle Dema-ala

“TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back -
"I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead."
"Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name. "Todd.”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“Todd!” she says again but this time in a way that asks me to look at her and I do and she stops Angharrad at the edge of the square and she’s looking at me, looking right into my eyes–

And I read her–

And I know exactly what she’s thinking–

And my Noise and my heart and my head fill up fit to burst, fill up like I’m gonna explode–

Cuz she’s saying–

She’s saying with her eyes and her face and her whole self–

“I know,” I say back to her, my voice husky. “Me, too.”

And then I turn to the Mayor and I’m filled with her, with her love for me and my love for her–

And it makes me big as an effing mountain–

And I take it and I slam all of it into the Mayor–”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“I rub the ears of my dog, my stupid goddam ruddy great dog that I never wanted but who hung around anyway and who followed me thru the swamp and who bit Aaron when he was trying to choke me and who found Viola when she was lost and who's licking my hand with his little pink tongue and whose eye is still mostly squinted shut from where Mr. Prentiss Jr. kicked him and whose tail is way way shorter from where Matthew Lyle cut it off when my dog - my dog - went after a man with a machete to save me and who's right there when I need pulling back from the darkness I fall into and who tells me who I am whenever I forget.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Don't deceive me. Never leave me.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go