4 Quotes by Alisson Wood

This part of the story is about the gaze and what it felt like in my body to look at someone who looked back at me, to see and be seen. All I wanted was to be seen.

He leaned down to my foot next to him and put his lips on my pink, swollen ankle. I felt his breath on my skin.And it was like every locked in the halls of my high school swung open at once, metal kissing cinder-block walls. It felt just like that.

That moment in my body when the teacher put his hand on my knee to comfort me was the understanding of all of that--that in order to be attractive, irresistible, to be worthy of notice, was to be both beautiful and in open need, to be damaged.

Yes, "Lolita" is beautiful. But yes, it's also terrible. We can hold both in our hands.