So I’m not gorgeous?” Macey challenged. “Of course you are.” He started away, turned back at the last minute. “But I’m the guy who figured out that’s not all you are.
I didn’t move; I just waited out the night. The school was quiet around me, and I let the silence calm my heartbreak, lull me into a sleepless trance as I stared past my reflection in the dark glass, and whispered, “Happy birthday, Daddy.
Dads sometimes look at daughters like they’re more precious than all the diamonds in England. I remembered that – once upon a time – someone had looked like that at me.
If you boys want to beat each other’s guts out, I’m willing to let you, but I’d rather get Cam someplace safe and find out what she’s doing walking the streets at five in the bloody morning.” She started back down the alley, then stopped and added, “Oh, and Zach, if you’re going to run away from school, leave a note. Even Cam did that.
So just out of curiosity, what do you think I’m worth?” he asked when he just couldn’t help himself. “I mean, it isn’t often a person’s put on the open market. What is the going rate for presidents’ sons these days? Is it more or less than what you guys were going to get for my mother? Accounting for inflation, of course.
These are the things I never say to anyone anymore. Not because I don’t want to say them – I want to scream them. But these are the things that no one else can bear to hear.
I don’t understand boys.
But even the Gallagher Academy hadn’t figured out a way to help us protect our hearts.
I thought about the ravens, and I spread my wings to fly...
You do a great many things for strangers, Katarina. What are you willing to do for your friends?
It was as if a virus had been injected into our school, but Macey’d known about a thousand boys before she’d come here. And I’d known Josh. The two of us had been exposed to boys before, so we had built up antibodies. We were, in a word, immune.
I don’t answer. I’m not staging a rebellion here. I stay quiet because I don’t want to break down, and I learnt a long time ago that, sometimes, the only way to silence the cries is by making no sound at all.
Five decades on the throne and this is how they treat me, Ms. Blakely. Makes me wish I’d been a teacher.” His voice drops. He almost sounds a little wistful. “I would have liked to have been a teacher.
Thank goodness you’re okay.′ Preston opened his arms and stepped towards me, but Zach lunged between us. ‘That’s close enough,’ he said, and Preston laughed. Yes, actual laughage.
You think you’re cute,” she told him. “You think you’re gorgeous. But I’m the one guy here who knows better.
Money comes and goes, darling. Tiaras are forever. So are titles.” Gabrielle.
Here’s the thing about lying: a part of you has to mean it – even if it is a tiny, sinister, shred that only lives in the blackest, darkest parts of your mind. You have to want it to be true.
A mind is totally big enough to get lost inside – to go crazy if you’re left with too much time and too much room to let your biggest fears run free.
But the part I remember most was when a man stepped out onto the high wire, fifty feet about the ground. By the time he reached the other side, five other people had climbed onto his shoulders, but I wasn’t watching him – I was too busy starting at my father, who looked on as if he knew what it felt like, up there without a net.
Bex gave me a wink, and for a second I thought about Zach. I know this probably makes me the worst unofficial girlfriend ever, but it was kind of nice not having him there. It felt good to be just us girls again. It was nice to have the chance to miss him.