Cora Carmack

“Someone's an easy grader.""Someone just has a soft spot where you are concerned." He was leaning down towards me and even though his face was a good foot away from me, I swear I felt those words like he'd whispered them into my ear.”

“Heaven help me, but I wanted my professor to be my boyfriend.”

“I want to say we're okay, Bliss. I need you, too. But I can't pretend I wasn't hoping this would go somewhere. I don't know if I can do it. The truth is... you are hurting me. Not on purpose, I know that. But I love you and every second that you don't love me back... it hurts.”

“¿Y si se desmayaba? ¿Y si la había asustado tanto que ella realmente perdía el conocimiento? Comencé a pensar en maneras paraexplicarlo.¿Se lo estaba guardando a un amigo?¿Era un accesorio para un show?Era... era... mierda, no sabía.Podía simplemente disculparme. Decirle que sabía que era muy rápido.Esperé a que hiciera algo —gritar, correr, llorar, desmayarse. Cualquier cosa sería mejor que su quietud. Debí haber sido honesto con ella. No era bueno en cosas como ésta. Dije lo que estaba pensando... no planes, no manipulación.Finalmente, cuando pensé que mi cuerpo se derrumbaría sólo por el estrés, se dio la vuelta. De frente a la cama, y sólo pude ver su perfil, pero se estaba mordiendo el labio. ¿Qué significaba eso? ¿Estaba sólo pensando? ¿Pensando en una forma para librarse de esto? Luego, lentamente, como el amanecer asomándose por el horizonte,sonrió.Cerró la caja.No gritó. No salió corriendo. No se desmayó. Pudo haber un poco de llanto.Pero sobre todo... bailó.”

“A veces, son las cosas que dan miedo en la vida las que más valen la pena.”

“—En realidad no. Sigo pensando que ella lo haría todo de nuevo si hubiera una posibilidad... una posibilidad de que pudiera salir bien. Aunque 99 veces de cada 100 la historia termina mal, pero merece la pena, aunque sólo sea una vez, que consiga un final feliz.—Escucha, Garrick, mientras que este paralelo que estás dibujando es adorable, sobre todo con ese acento, estoy un poco cansada de las metáforas, y ser comparada con las historias de amor condenadas. Sólo di lo que quieres decir. He estado descifrando un texto antiguo toda la noche. No quiero tener que descifrarte a ti, también.—Estoy diciendo que me equivoqué. —Dio un paso más cerca, y mi cansancio huyó, sustituido por la electricidad bajo mi piel—. Estoy diciendo que me gustas. Estoy diciendo que no me importa una mierda ser tu maestro.Entonces, me besó.”

“Touché. No me importa lo que hagamos, siempre y cuándo te quedes.”

“Shoes are stupid. Why do people wear them?" -BlissHe laughed, "So they don't step on a nail and get tetanus, that's why." -Cade"Wear. Where. Wear. W's are wwweeird."-Bliss”

“He smiled, and I knew… I was in trouble.”

“I’m done. I won’t ignore.I won’t pretend or resist.I want more.”

“Shiiiit. Cade weighs a lot. Way more than I thought!” I moaned/sang.”

“Sometimes, saying the first thing that came to mind went well. Sometimes simple and honest worked the best.”

“We want what we can't have. It's human nature.”

“Hopes and dreams are great, but they are a lot easier to break than a solid plan.”

“How can people decide who they want to spend the rest of their life with at this age? I can’t even decide what to have for dinner! I can’t decide if I want to be an actor, even though I’ve already got 35,000 dollars in student loans telling me I sure as hell better want to be anactor.”

“— ¿Qué? El hecho de que no puedo tenerte ahora mismo, no significa que estoy bien con que él te tenga.— Voy a fingir que no te referiste a mí como propiedad para poseer. — ¿No podemos poseernos el uno al otro?”

“―Estoy enamorada de este burrito. Me casaría con si no quisiera tanto comérmelo.―La tragedia de un amor verdadero ―susurró Cade.”

“Honey, right now you look like someone's adorable little sister. No guy wants to screw his little sister. And if he does, you don't want to be near him.”

“You are unbelievably sexy.”

“She said she wanted my best line tomorrow after the show, and now I knew what it was going to be.”

“Then, slowly, like the sunrise peeking over the horizon, she smiled.She snapped the box closed.She didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She didn’t faint.There might have been a little crying.But mostly… she danced.”

“He was flabbergasted. That was the best word. His flabber had been thoroughly gasted.”

“That guy is trying to be a gentleman, because as much as he wanted you to come back to his place and as much as he wants to kiss you-you're hurt, I'm afraid you don't actually want me here”

“He looked at me, finally. I wanted to believe I saw softness in his eyes, but I could have imagined it. I did that all the time. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could see him reaching toward me, his lips millimeters from my own. But always… always I opened my eyes and it wasn’t real.”

“La gente torpe también necesita amor.”

“How much of my fever-induced dream was real? I felt safe assuming that my time as a bee was fiction, as well as a few mythological animals that I swear I'd seen. Then I'd lived on the sun with aliens.”

“Bliss, I don’t normally do things like that. But I was second-guessing everything about coming here, and you were everything I needed. I don’t know how many times I’ve stopped myself from coming over here and knocking on your door. And yes, seeing you with Cade was definitely motivation, but more than that... I just like you, Bliss. As a teacher. As a person. As a guy.”

“What's your name, love?"Love? LOVE! Still dying, here."Bliss.""Is that a line?"I blushed crimson. "No, it's my name.""Lovely name for a lovely girl.”

“You're not trying to pick up a girl?""I wasn't.”

“An accent. HE HAS A BRITISH ACCENT. Dear God, I'm dying.”

“There was Bartender Boy, but he wouldn't get off until well after 2 A.M. I was a nervous wreck already, so if this dragged on till the wee hours of the morning, I'd be completely psychotic. I could just imagine it . . . straight-jacketed due to sex.”

“I didn't want to be a virgin. That much I knew. I didn't want to feel like the immature prude who knew nothing about sex. I hated not knowing things. The trouble was...as much as I didn't want to be a virgin, I also didn't want to have sex.”

“She pulled her blonde hair back into a high ponytail, which somehow drew even more attention to her chest. "I don't mean the right guy to marry, honey. I mean the right guy to get your blood pumping. To make you turn off your analytical, judgmental, hyperactive brain and think with your body instead.""Bodies can't think.""SEE!" She said. "Analytical. Judgmental.”

“Do me a favor? Be a gentleman tomorrow?”

“Phaedra keeps saying she's being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can't deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his." "And have you learned anything from our literary parallel?" "Not really, I keep thinking that she would do it all over again if there were a chance...a chance that it could go right. Even if 99 times out of a 100 the story ends badly, it's worth it if only once she gets a happy ending.”

“What? Just because I can't have you right now, doesn't mean I'm okay with him having you.”

“He was still a mystery to me. And God, did I want to play Nancy Drew.”

“I get what it's like to want something, but to try and force yourself to really believe that you don't.”

“We spend so much time defending our choice to do this that it becomes hard to show any vulnerability at all. There's only so many times you can handle someone asking about your fall back for when things don't work before you start thinking that maybe the fall back should just be your plan.”

“Tell me I'm not crazy," He said. I couldn't do that. I was nowhere near sane enough at the moment to advise anyone else on rational behavior.”

“The timbre of his voice went into that low register that made my insides curl in on themselves--it was like my uterus was tapping out a happy dance on the rest of my organs.”

“But sex...that was the opposite of control. There were emotions, and attraction, and that pesky other person that just had to be involved. Not my idea of fun.”

“I danced. I danced without music. I screamed without sound. I celebrated in silence, in the dark, behind the curtains where no one could see.”

“Some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out.”

“It was like my uterus was tapping out a happy dance on the rest of my organs. God, I was dying the longest, most tortuous, and arousing death in the history of the world.”

“If brains could have orgasms, I'm pretty sure this was what it would feel like.”

“Sometimes, it’s the scary things in life that are the most worthwhile.” I told him. I’m pretty sure I’d read that in a fortune cookie once upon a time. That made it wise, right?”

“Present, I flee you: absent, I find you again.(Shakespeare)Present, I fled him. But no matter the distance between us, I kept coming back to him. It all kept coming back to him.”

“I am in love with this burrito. I would marry it if I didn’t want to eat it so badly.” “The tragedy of true love,” Cade whispered.”

“Why does the world hate me?” They both laughed, but it wasn’t funny. SERIOUSLY. Why does the world hate me?”