“Color fills her cheeks, and I think it again: that Johanna Reyes might still be beautiful. Except now I think that she isn't just beautiful in spite of the scar, she's somehow beautiful with it, like Lynn with her buzzed hair, like Tobias with the memories of his father's cruelty that he wears like armor, like my mother in her plain gray clothing.”

“I think she is beautiful, but in a way that is not friendly, like in a way that just makes me want her to be mine.”

“He ran the back of his fingers along her flushed cheek. His touch was soft, and she leaned her head in his direction. “My beautiful girl,” he said.She took in his expression. “You think I’m beautiful?”“I don’t think you’re beautiful, Haven,” he said. “I know you are.”

“I looked around me at the beautiful sunrise and I was thinking, Yes, yes, everything will be beautiful like this now. I will never be afraid again. I will never spend another day trapped in the color gray.”

“He smiled. He liked to imagine that she saw the beauty, that she could think outside the well-worn tracks of her countrymen, find something to like about this unsophisticated place. Because that just might mean she could find something to like about him.”

“My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”