“The ache starts in my chest and spreads through my veins. The abuse I can handle; it's the happiness that cripples.”

“My mother always says that love is like a snakebite, a venom slowly spreading through your veins.”

“A gentle, warm, sweet pain spreads through my chest at those words.”

“His smell—the scent of a demon, cinnamon incense, amber musk—wrapped around me, filled my lungs. I felt like I could breathe again, without every breath being tainted by the stench of dying cells. The smell of him seemed to coat my abused insides with peace, and flow down into the middle of my body to spread through my veins. I filled my lungs again. While I could, before what was undoubtedly a hallucination vanished.”

“I'll sometimes feel a warmth or ache in my chest and think that it's my heart shaking off it's torpor. I hear it murmuring; maybe someday it will shout.”

“He steps onto the sidewalk and rocks on the balls of his feet. He looks beautiful standing there, and a familiar ache starts in my chest as I wonder how I can love and fear the sight of someone with the same intensity.”