Chloe Liese

Sometimes I wish I heard nothing at all, so I wouldn’t constantly be reminded of everything I didn’t.

The irony is not lost on me, that he’s the first man who’s ever truly made me feel heard in my life and he can’t hear a word I’m saying.

It’s like weird IT soft porn, watching the way the laptop slips out of his bag, how Ryder’s hands curl around the screen as he sets it upright.

“Luke the Duke of Douchery.” I reach up and pinch his nipple, making him yelp and step back. “What brings you here, polluting the atmosphere with your existence?”

I need to get laid. This is not right. I’m eroticizing hand-drying.

That woman, Frankie,” he says. “It’s you.”

I roll my eyes. “You really read too many romance novels.”

“No such thing, Oliver. No such thing.”

its cracks and bruises bandaged by hope.

it hurts to read it, to feel people love each other the way I’ve always wanted to be loved

mean, romance novels, while focused on romantic relationships, also spend a lot of time excavating the main characters’ interiority—their past wounds, how those drive their present behavior and motivations, what fuels their dynamic with their love interest and the rest of the characters.