#nbv2

"escapism had become a hobby: a habit. she would stay up late and work by the dim light of her white-laced lamp, drawing up grandiose designs and sketches, scribbling paris and milan beneath the graphite threads. this was her dream, this was her escape and her reality. if she ran away, just far enough into her unconscious, would it be possible to float away from all of her troubles and, instead, live this life that she'd forever envisioned?"

"mouth hanging open, xiu min glanced at the overturned books on the floor. there were so many -- so many pages crinkled and covers bent -- he was going to be swimming in debt if he kept this up."

"his lungs were heavy with muddled air, heaving as they tried to gulp in as much oxygen as they could hold. then again, his entire life had been a mural of bare minimums, so a lack of breath control was something that came with a twinge of irony."

"second chances weren't worth a damn thing. she'd been blind in her belief that it would be different- that he would be different. history was, and always had been, inescapably repetitious in nature despite arguments to the contrary. the first time had been painful, but this.. this was agonizing in its unrelenting brutality. the sheer magnitude threatened to drown her without any true inhalation of the water in which she was submerged."

"the heaviness spreads throughout his body to the point where it is difficult to eat; at this rate, he fears that his growth will be stunted, but he's decided not to care. his mother's voice feeds through the answering machine in trembling crescendoes while he answers in hoarse, choppy apologies. it takes all that remains within him to pull himself back, to trick his own mind into thinking that maybe if he waits a few more days, he'll reappear things would be normal, again. things would be good; he had almost forgotten the feeling entirely."

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