The Project

Having a sister, mom says, is a place only the two of them will share, made of secrets they never have to say aloud - but if they did, it would be in a language only the two of them could speak. Having a sister is a promise no one but the two of you can make - and no one but the two of you can break.

You wanted the truth. Or are you afraid of it now?

You don't have to be our worst case, to be a worthy case.

For that brief period when everything ugly is covered under the sparkle of something so new, the world almost feels like it’s living up to its potential.

If you tell a story - something real, something true - you get to be alive in other people. And writing feels like the most... the greatest chance I'll ever have at being - alive.

Having a sister is a promise no one but the two of you can make—and no one but the two of you can break.

What is about to be offered to you has never been offered to anyone before.

There’s no forgiveness in me, I don’t think. Just a brutal acceptance of all that has been lost and a resigned march forward in the face of no other options.

Sometimes, Bea thinks heaven is here and now but when Lev talks like this, she knows she's wrong. If today is ecstasy, tomorrow will be a greater bliss. Lev will lead them into that tomorrow.

She stares at her body, naked in the mirror and she's sorry she never made note of it before it belonged to anyone else.

It's a fucking cult, Paul." "So is the Catholic Church.

He's just a man. As soon as I think it, anger courses through my veins, alighting my blood. It's a wrath strong enough to make me want to disappear the space between us just to break him into pieces. That Lev Warren could do everything he's done to me - And be only a man.

[...] it wants to drown me in its truth: he's only a man, and if he's only a man, what does that make me?

There is no flaw in you.

There is no flaw in you

In two years, a darkness will settle over our nation, brought by a man who wears no masks. He is who he claims to be. He will call for a wall built on the promise of greatness, but the foundation is rot. The first brick laid will be fear. The second: ignorance. The third: hate. Your neighbors are no longer your neighbors. Their masks will come off, and they will spread the darkness. They will rally in hate. Innocents will die. Children will suffer. No

There’s a vise around my heart and my heart flutters frantically against it.

All of it speaks to more people than are present. I listen, wondering if they’re somewhere in the house—if she’s hiding somewhere in this house—but all I hear is the sound of a clock ticking faintly from another room.

my eyes as bloodshot as my white face is bloodless.