Quotes From "The Siren" By Tiffany Reisz

Why does she even bother sleeping?” I heard Elizabeth ask quietly. “You’d think by now she’d stop trying. We don’t need it.” I paused, waiting to hear Miaka’s response. “She must have a really wonderful dream often enough to make the bad ones worth it. Kiera Cass

Words are the thread in the fabric of the universe. Tiffany Reisz

Wanting to cry doesn't mean you can. Kiera Cass

I felt a warm hand touch my forehead. And then my cheek. I held my act steady though Akinli’s touch made me feel more than awake.“ Where in the world did you come from, you beautiful, silent girl?” he whispered. Kiera Cass

He grinned back at me, and I remembered how normal he’d made me feel the first time we’d met. Here, once again, he wasn’t bothered by my silence. And I suddenly realized what made me feel so uncomfortable about Elizabeth’s exploits. The people she attracted were drawn to the same thing everyone else was: our glowing skin, dreamy eyes, and air of secrecy. But this boy? He seemed to see more than that. He saw me not just as a mysterious beauty, but as a girl he wanted to know. He didn’t stare at me. He spoke to me. Kiera Cass

You have always been my only muse. I cannot paint or sculpt. I have only my words to render your likeness. Sometimes I wish I were both God and Adam so I could tear out my rib and create you from my own flesh. I would say I’d create you from my heart, but I gave that to you when you left me. But that’s a cliché, isn’t it? Sadly, that’s all I have these days. The whole story is a cliché. I desired you. I ate of you. I lost you. That ancient story — older than the Garden, old as the Snake. I would have liked to call this story of ours The Temptation but the word temptation, once the province of pious theologians, has now been co-opted by every third second-rate romance novelist. And although I loved you, my beautiful girl, this is not a romance novel. . Tiffany Reisz

Hurt is a bruise on the outside. Harm is a bruise on the inside. Tiffany Reisz

Hurt but do not harm?” Zach asked. “What’s the difference?” “Hurt is a bruise on the outside.” Nora sipped her mineral water delicately. “Harm is a bruise on the inside. If you’re a masochist, pain feels like love to you. Not being hurt is what hurts. Tiffany Reisz

I'm no optimist", she said as she opened the cabinet door. " I'm just a realist who smiles too much. Tiffany Reisz

Akinli, this strange boy whose life at the moment seemed to be hanging on this, pushed himself from the bed. Julie gasped, watching as his arms trembled under his weight, even as thin as he was. He crushed his eyes together in concentration, willing himself up. I heard Ben whisper to himself, “Come on, come on, come on.” When Akinli, breathing as if he truly had just run a marathon, was fairly close to upright, he held out an arm for me. I fell into it fearlessly. We leaned into each other, neither of us strong enough to stay up on our own.“ I thought I’d never see you sit up again, ” Julie cried. We both turned to her, smiling at the happy tears on her face. . Kiera Cass

I’d waited an eternity for this. I’d have waited all over again if I had to. I was meant to kiss this boy, designed to be held by him. Kiera Cass

They got under each of my shoulders and pulled me up, Padma walking in front of me and holding her arms out for good measure. I walked on my own, but I knew that if they hadn’t been there, I might have fallen more than once. Side by side, we marched into the Ocean, all of us crying for Kiera Cass

I can text in complete sentences. Oh, yeah, it’s a skill.” He smiled, proud of his accomplishments. “And, thanks to my mom being a competitive dancer as a teen, I know how to do the Lindy hop and the jitterbug.” I sat bolt upright, and Akinli rolled his eyes.“ I swear, if you tell me you can jitterbug, I’m going to . I don’t even know. Set something on fire. No one can dance like that.” I pursed my lips and dusted off my shoulder, a thing I’d seen Elizabeth do when she was bragging. As if he was accepting a challenge, he shrugged off his backpack and stood, holding out a hand for me. I took it and positioned myself in front of him as he shook his head, grinning.“ All right, we’ll take this slow. Five, six, seven, eight.” In unison, we rock stepped and triple stepped, falling into the rhythm in our head. After a minute, he got brave and swung me around, lining me up for those peppy kicks I loved so much. People walked by, pointing and laughing, but it was one of those moments when I knew we weren’t being mocked; we were being envied. We stepped on each other’s toes more than once, and after he accidentally knocked his head into my shoulder, he threw his hands up.“ Unbelievable, ” he said, almost as if he was complaining. “I can’t wait to tell my mom this. She’s gonna think I’m lying. All those years dancing in the kitchen thinking I was special, and then I run across a master. . Kiera Cass

I know you want to fuck me. And I know you wish you didn’t. So how about we compromise and you can sit here and say, ‘No, Nora, ’ ‘Don’t, Nora, ’ ‘Stop, Nora, ’ and I’ll ignore all those protests and slide right down on your cock anyway? And I’ll do it because no and don’t and stop aren’t your safe word. So you can finally get fucked and still sleep like a baby in your big lonely bed tonight feeling all clean and shiny and virginal because, after all, you did say ‘no’ and that awful Nora Sutherlin just wouldn’t listen. . Tiffany Reisz

Stop writing what you know and start writing what you want to know. Tiffany Reisz

When we were in New York, you cried for two days and passed out. You said a word in your sleep, over and over. Akinli.” Elizabeth stared down at the drawing.“ At first I thought it was gibberish. And then I thought it was the name of a town or a building. . I didn’t figure out it belonged to a person until you made that.” Elizabeth pointed down to the paper, worn from being folded and unfolded who knew how many times.“ When Elizabeth came to me, I had to tell her the truth, and we decided to find him. You gave us the name of the town. We went there looking for someone answering to that name, fitting this image.” Miaka smiled ruefully. “Very small town. It wasn’t hard.” Tears pooled in my eyes. “You’ve really seen him?” They both nodded. I thought about all those trips they had taken, making up ridiculous stories so they could get to him without me knowing.“ How is he?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity. “Is he okay? Has he gone back to school? Is he still with Ben and Julie? Is he happy? Could you tell? Is he happy?” The questions tumbled out without me being able to hold them in. I was desperate to know. I felt a single word would put my soul at ease. Elizabeth swallowed hard. “That’s the thing, Kahlen. We’re afraid he’s dying. Kiera Cass

I cannot explain how two souls join. No man or element or god ever could. But you are tied to each other. Because of that–because of your true, consuming, pure love–you will thrive together . . or you will perish together.“ I don’t understand.” I swallowed, trying to make sense of it all. If he hadn’t heard your voice, he’d be fine. But once he aged, however many years from now that might come, you would have found yourself deteriorating then. Or if you had disobeyed Me so fully that I had to kill you, he’d have died in the same breath. You are tied through your souls. Now, what happens to one body happens to the other. And since your voice has taken hold of him, killing him slowly, you fall down with him. Slower, of course, as you are still Mine. But it will consume you eventually, all the same. Kiera Cass

Only afterward did the guilt set in--the guilt that for a few minutes he let himself stop feeling guilty. Tiffany Reisz

I got the groceries and lugged them all the way to Akinli’s dorm, running slightly behind because I couldn’t get into the building on my own. The university required ID cards to get into the dorms after six, and since I wasn’t an actual student, I had to wait for someone else to come along and scan his so I could piggyback in.“ You need some help?” the boy asked, his eyes lingering on my mouth. I shook my head no.“ Aww, come on. That’s way too heavy for you.” He came closer, and again I cursed our natural appeal. I wasn’t in danger exactly, and I knew that, but it didn’t make these encounters any less uncomfortable. I shook my head again.“ No, really, which floor are you on? I can–”“ Hey, Kahlen! ” I looked up to see Akinli walking down the hall. His button-up was open over the gray shirt beneath it, but I was thrilled to see that he’d at least put one on. “I was starting to worry. Hey, Sam.”“Hey.” The boy gave Akinli a look and headed toward the stairwell, his displeasure at Akinli’s arrival clear. In the meantime, I felt my mood lift significantly. I was now officially on my first date. Kiera Cass

Elizabeth nodded, looking too dejected to do much more. “Can she just go back to him?” she pleaded. “He’s dying. She’s dying. They can’t have a life together, but at least they could have th Kiera Cass

When we’d all settled down from that first night, Julie found a bag on the porch, which we thought must have been left by the same three girls who had brought me to them. Just like the clues on my skin, I’d only been left with two worldly possessions. The first was a wad of cash that I immediately handed to Ben and Julie as compensation for giving me a home. Most of it went to pay for Akinli’s medical bills, which was fine with me. I didn’t know if there was a word bigger than soul mates, something that meant the feeling of being so connected that it was hard to tell where one person ended and the other began. If there was, that word belonged to Akinli and me. The second thing was a bottle of water. It was so peculiar, this water, a blue that was both dark and brilliant, too thick to see through but still carrying light. No matter the season, it was always cold, and there were tiny shells in it that never settled. Sometimes I slept with it, even though it was cold enough to wake me up if I rolled on it the wrong way. It was the only clue I had to tell me who I had been before the night I was left on the porch, and I loved it second only to Akinli.Somehow, I knew that this love was important, as if treasuring the water meant I treasured myself. And I did. I loved my recovering body, I loved my blue-eyed soul mate, I loved my adopted family. I held the water to my chest, and I loved. Kiera Cass

Eventually you will find something to put that energy into and you will be unstoppable. Even now with something you take no joy in, you do your task dutifuly, because it's all you can do. There's something beautiful in that, Collin. Kiera Cass

Broken love is the most dangerous love. It will slice you open with every touch. Tiffany Reisz

Sometimes you have to give the hurt a noise and let it out. If you don’t, it fills you up with its emptiness. Kiera Cass

S&M is as psychological as it is physical and sexual, Zach. Imagine being as deep inside a woman’s mind as you are inside her body. Tiffany Reisz

Keeping me a virgin waiting for him for so long proved he owned me even more than fucking me would have. Tiffany Reisz

I instantly dragged my fingers across a shelf of book spines, in love with each one already. Books were a safe place, a world apart from my own. No matter what had happened that day, that year, there was always a story in which someone overcame their darkest hour. I wasn't alone. Kiera Cass

I looked at him and the other two people whose names I’d just learned. “So. so this is home then?” Akinli looked at me, perplexed, then turned to Ben and Julie.“She said some girls left her here and told her it was home. That’s all she knows. She doesn’t even know you.” Julie wiped at her tears, trying to calm herself. He moved his eyes back to me as quickly as he could manage. “Kahlen? You remember me, right?” I stared into this face, searching for something familiar. I didn’t recognize the angle of his chin, the length of his fingers. I didn’t know the slope of his shoulder or the shape of his lips.“ Akinli, right?” I asked. This poor boy. I pitied him in the depths of my heart. Clearly, he’d already been going through something, and I could see the last scrap of fight he had in him dying with those words.“ Yes.”“ I don’t remember ever seeing you before in my life. I’m sorry.” He pressed his lips together as if he was swallowing the urge to cry.“ But, ” I said, “I know your voice. I know it as if it were my own. Kiera Cass

I finally made eye contact with the boy in the bed. He lay on his side, a tube in his nose and another in his vein. His cheeks were sunken, and his skin was ghostly pale. His hair might have been blond, but it was fading into a gray, making it hard to tell. The only part of this boy that held any life at all were his eyes, which brimmed with tears when he saw me.“ Kahlen?” I sat still. These three people all called me by the same name, which sounded sort of like Katlyn and Ellen and made me believe that maybe they actually knew me.“ Where did you go? Where have you been? I thought you were dead.” His chest worked overtime, trying to keep up with his mouth, spilling over with words.“ Can you get her a pen? Please?” He lifted an arm weakly. It was all bone. “I just need to know.”“ A pen?” I asked. Once again his eyes lit up.“ You can talk?” I stared at this boy, at how he was overjoyed at one of the most basic things a person could do. “So it would seem.” I smiled. He flopped onto his back, laughing from his gut, and based on Julie’s tears, I was guessing she’d been waiting a long time for that to come back. Kiera Cass