Changing is what people do when they have no options left.

I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.

I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life and start figuring out the one I have.

I can learn to live with guilt. I don't care about being good.

Watching my back is the perfect opportunity to stick a knife in it.

People said that video games were bad because they made you numb to death, made you register entrails splattering across a screen as a sign of success. In that moment, Val thought that the real problem with games was that the player was suppossed to try everything. If there was a cave, you went in it. If there was a mysterious stranger, you talked to him. If there was a map, you followed it. But in games, you had a hundred million billion lives and Val only had this one.

I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks- cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up.He called it his second smile.

If you keep it," Daneca says, "he'll have his claws in you."Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone.

The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke.