They want you to be small and silent. Good was just another word for don’t fight back.
It makes it hard to be alive, some days. A lot of times I wish I were dead, I truly do, just to make the pain stop.
It doesn’t matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love. So much in love, that equally desperate measures must be taken.
I love you, Cady. I mean it.” I leaned in and kissed him.
Grandad’s voice boomed across the yard. ‘This is the United States of America,’ he said. ‘You don’t seem to understand that, Penny, so let me explain. In America, here is how we operate. We work for what we want, and we get ahead. We never take no for an answer, and we deserve the rewards of our perseverance... We Sinclairs are a grand, old family. That is something to be proud of. Our traditions and values form the bedrock on which future generations stand.
Do you understand, Cady? Silence is a protective coating over pain.
But you can be talky and paint your fingernails and still be very sad. In fact, you can be talky and paint your fingernails to protect other people from how sad you are.
Yeah.” Gat was silent for a moment. “Do you believe in God?” “Halfway.” I tried to think about it seriously. I knew Gat wouldn’t settle for a flippant answer. “When things are bad, I’ll pray or imagine someone watching over me, listening. Like the first few days after my dad left, I thought about God. For protection. But the rest of the time, I’m trudging along in my everyday life. It’s not even slightly spiritual.
Every time Gat said these things, so casual and truthful, so oblivious – my veins opened. My wrists split. I bled down my palms. I went light-headed. I’d stagger from the table or collapse in quiet shameful agony, hoping no one in the family would notice. Especially not Mummy.
She wanted to see all his scars, see all of him, and she felt suddenly, intensely certain that he was a safe person to show her own scars to.
People befriend me because they think I’m happy. I’m not even sure why they think I’m happy, but they do. I get distracted, and I laugh, and I turn something on in myself that makes me, maybe, fun to be with. And I’m just – I want you to know up front that I’m false advertising.
In the theater,” Adelaide went on, wanting him to understand why she found this so interesting, “your audience doesn’t expect things to look real. Like, you can’t have a real car on the stage, anyway, can you? So instead, you make something obviously artificial. You just create the feeling. And maybe the thing you make, instead of looking real, feels true.
It’s a tiny box, Mirren. Me and Mummy. Me and my pills. Me and my pain. I don’t want to live there anymore.
What a lovely way to burn.
ME, JOHNNY, MIRREN, and Gat. Gat, Mirren, Johnny, and me. The family calls us four the Liars, and probably we deserve it.
I mean, when I die, throw my ashes in the water of the tiny beach. Then when you miss me, you can climb up here, look down, and think how awesome I was.
I’ll tell you what I don’t want at my funeral,” says Johnny. “I don’t want a bunch of New York art-world types who don’t even know me standing around in a stupid-ass reception room.” “I don’t want religious people talking about a God I don’t believe in,” says Gat. “Or a bunch of fake girls acting all sad and then putting lip gloss on in the bathroom and fixing their hair,” says Mirren.
Johnny leapt off the boat and threw his own vest on the dock. First thing, he ran up to Mirren and kicked her. Then he kicked me. Kicked the twins. Walked over to our grandparents and stood up straight. “Good to see you, Granny and Granddad. I look forward to a happy summer.
Not all pain is worth it,’ said Tipper. ‘Some pain is just pain.
Don’t pretend you would never hurt anybody.