Akwaeke Emezi

Maybe she should have known that if he didn’t love God the way she did, then he couldn’t have been the real answer to her prayers. This could have all been a false faith, and now her eyes were being torn open. If there was gratitude to give God for that clarity, that release from a lie, Aima couldn’t quite find it in her to send it up. Right now, she didn’t want to talk to God. All she had was a plate full of bitter silence.

Never mind if she sat out on her balcony at home sometimes and fought the urge to find him again, wondered what they could be like if they hadn’t crashed together the way they had, wondered what could have been in another timeline.

maybe coming here was just going to layer more things onto him and make him so heavy that he would fold, crash under new and unexpected skins.

You could be so intimate, so familiar with someone’s skin and flesh and spirit, only to wake up one day and find that it had receded from you, suddenly, like a tide rushing back out into the sea, leaving you with dissolving foam and a damp heart.

She had tried explaining it so many times, but he was hung up on the woman she used to be, and she was disappointed in the man he still was.

That morning, she was wearing an orange cotton dress; she looked like a burning sunset, and Chika knew immediately that his story would end with her, that he would drown in her large liquid eyes and it would be the perfect way to go.

There was nothing boiling in him, just a loud and clear exhale, a weight of peace wrapping around his heart.”

(Chapter 4, Page 43)

...the world gotta burn before we can build a new one. We just got different ideas about what kinda fire we need.

Her mother focused on her, cupping her cheek in a chalky hand. ‘Monsters don’t look like anything, doux-doux. That’s the whole point. That’s the whole problem.’”

He raised his head as Bitter emerged from the office, and his face broke into a huge smile. It made the blood rush to Bitter's face, how openly Aloe showed his pleasure at her presence. Sometimes she wondered how he found the courage to flash emotions as if no one could hurt him with them.

Angels aren't pretty pictures in old holy books, just like monsters aren't ugly pictures. It's all just people, doing hard things or doing bad things.”