There is a body on a pyre of dried reeds, the leaves wefted with lilies and out-of-season poppies, like rosaries of fresh blood; jasmine and sprigs of drooping wisteria, frangipani like petals of meringue, harvests of sweet alyssum. The saccharine headiness of them nearly disguises the odor of the carcass, the formaldehyde in which its viscera has been steeped.

How is this so gross and so beautiful?

Selena believed, with every fiber of her being, that a person's worth was not defined by how hard they worked or how productive they managed to be. She also believed just as strongly that this did not apply to her.

I feel so called out by Selena as a character. 😅 Rehearsing conversations and now this?