“I Watch Her Face In The Dying Light Of The Evening. Count Her Freckles Like I Always Do. A Useless

“I needed to let her go, and deep down, I knew it. But my soul couldn’t, so I ended up grabbing her wrist and jerking her back to me.”

Midnight Blue by L.J. Shen

“Then I kiss her.

I kiss her like I need her soul tangled with mine.

She kisses back like it’s happened already for years.”

Addicted After All by Krista and Becca Ritchie

“I scrub all the dirt away with my hands, but don’t know what to do about the filth that stains my soul.”

Sicko by Amo Jones

“So the saying is true? Money doesn’t buy happiness?”

“...You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.”

“What fills the holes in a soul?”

Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a few seconds. “Pieces of someone else’s soul.”

Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover

GABRIEL’S INFERNO (2020)

“We both look down at our hands as I slowly pry my fingers away from hers and release my grip. “You sure do know how to make a guy feel like shit, Bridgette.” ...I cover my mouth with my hand, squeezing the stress out of my jaw.

We make it three blocks.

Three blocks is all it takes for her to do the most considerate thing she’s ever done for me since the moment I met her.

She reaches to the steering wheel and takes my hand. She pulls it to her lap and slides her fingers between mine. She doesn’t stop there, though. Her right hand slides over the top of my hand and she strokes it. She strokes my fingers and the top of my hand and my wrist and back down to my fingers. She stares out her window the whole time, but I can feel her. I can feel her speaking to me and holding me and making love to me, all in the motion of her hands.

And I smile the entire way to my sister’s house.”

Maybe Not by Colleen Hoover

Falling down, through the darkness.

She doesn’t scream, or cry for help,

lost her mind a long time ago.

She prefers falling down.”

—Oliver Masters

Stay With Me by Nicole Fiorina

“Turning around to look at him, I put a hand on his cheek. “Are you happy, Alex?”

“I’m an artist. My job is not to be happy. My job is to feel, to suffer, and to conjure the same feelings in others.”

Midnight Blue by L.J. Shen

“He reached out to smooth his fingers gently across her wrist, as if he was trying to apologize to her skin. (Not that her skin would have accepted his apology.)”

Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard

“And yet, despite telling herself that she was luckier, she felt cursed.”

The Annihilator by RuNyx