Akwaeke Emezi

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.

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.”

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.”

The revolution needs artists, just like it needs healers and storytellers, just like it needs the organizers and protesters. It's all one big organism working together.

Bitter knew her name was heavy, but she hadn’t minded, because it was honest. That was something she’d taught Jam—that a lot of things were manageable as long as they were honest […] But Jam trusted her mother for those brutal truths, and that’s why home was the first place she brought the books with the angels in them.”

You are allowed to feel safe, " Miss Virtue said. Bitter blinked, the tears heated her eyes because the words were so simple, yet so heavy with permission.

The foster parents had said that she would end up nowhere, then you could make up wherever you wanted to be, you could make it real. You could, for example, paint it into existence.