“She knew in that moment what it felt like to want to own another being, declare them as yours.”

“She knew what it felt like to stand in front of someone and ask them to love you, to try to pull them to you by the sheer force of your desire, a force so strong it felt as though you were going to die from it.”

“No matter what the challenge, Aurore always felt stronger on her own territory. Her deepest faith abided in her vines. She knew her childhood home on Cyprus like she knew her own body.”

“She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.”

“Pella felt like she knew a lot about men, but she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be one of them, to be in a room of them with no woman present, to participate in their silent rights of contrition and redemption.”

“She had felt a collision with him and known that she had wanted this her whole life: to crash for just one moment into another person at such a velocity as to fuse with him.”