Tess Sharpe

this giant lump of fear in my stomach, chest, and throat.

sawed-off shotgun

His voice is gruff

Give a person what they want, you’ll have them in the palm of your hand.

Useful is what it is. To see into the heart of someone and adjust accordingly, instantaneously, to mirror that heart? It’s not a gift or a curse. It’s just a tool.

What didn’t kill me didn’t make me stronger; what didn’t kill me made me a victim.

But I made me stronger. I made me a survivor.

had found that there was no rhyme or reason to any of this; grief and war, they were intertwined. Bedfellows in the truest sense. The only way to defeat them was the same: battle.

Those first six months—that entire first year, really—she was reeling, needing a teammate, while I needed a mother.

But this time, she kind of sighs it through her fingers as if she’s trying to hold it in. As if it’s suddenly become a secret I’m not supposed to hear

She’s definitely had too much to drink—she’s talking this freely with me. And I’ve definitely had too much to drink, too, that I’m sitting here, hanging on her words like she’s a cliff I’ve slipped from. But I keep hold instead of letting go