Home > Work > Flow (Grip, #0.5)
1 " I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue. "
― Kennedy Ryan , Flow (Grip, #0.5)
2 " We both gave each other space to be misunderstood, because we really wanted to understand. "
3 " We just tiptoe around things, afraid we’ll offend or look ignorant, be misunderstood. Honesty is a risk few are willing to take. "
4 " So what color am I then?” I ask before thinking better of it. He’ll probably just say I’m white, obviously. “What color are you?” he repeats, his eyes never leaving my face. “You, Bristol, are a freaking prism. "
5 " She’s something rare—smart, classy, gorgeous, funny, opinionated, and under it all, where she tries to hide it, kind. And burrowed beneath all of that, vulnerable. She isn’t the kind of girl you mess over. "
6 " I look at her, cataloging her features one by one and realizing the most fascinating thing about this girl isn’t visible to the naked eye. "
7 " Art, specifically music, is a living thing,” he says. “It isn’t just absorbed by the people who hear it, but it absorbs them. "
8 " When other people are as outraged and as curious about those problems as black people are,” he says. “Then maybe we can solve them together. "
9 " What should be foreign feels familiar. "
10 " We don’t “emancipate” where I come from. Nah. We keep shit simple and just never come home. "
11 " She looks like me,” he says. “I told you we’re twins. Lemme check the Cloud for a picture.” Did "
12 " I guess to me, we have enough that divides us and makes us misunderstand each other. Do we really need one more thing we can’t agree on? "
13 " You’re not asking the wrong question. Is it the most important question, though? "
14 " But I want to hear the same dismay and curiosity,” he continues, his smile leveling out. “About the issues that are actually eroding our communities. Let’s ask why black men are six percent of the general population and nearly forty percent of the prison population. "
15 " Let’s get some outrage over people of color getting longer sentences for the same crimes other people commit. "
16 " Oh, no. By no means.” Grip leans back, considering me from under heavy eyelids. “I don’t care what color a girl is. I like the color of smart, the shade of funny, and sexy is my favorite hue. "
17 " At the top of the world, so close we could almost touch the sky and with only the stars watching, I found out what a kiss should be. "
18 " That guard I forgot about and dropped all week falls back into place over my heart just in time. “We don’t cry in front of strangers. "
19 " But Bristol is all kinds of things I could not have anticipated or prepared for. Her curiosity, her authenticity, and her honesty hook something in me and draw me closer. "
20 " I know what he sees and probably what he thinks. Big black dude, arms splashed with tats, “First Weed. Then Coffee” T-shirt. He’s probably ready to piss himself. He’s like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid all grown up but still wimpy. I could squash him with my eyelashes. "