And this is the truth. Because I may be only eighteen, but it already seems pretty obvious that the world is divided into two groups: the doers and the watchers. The people things happen to and the rest of us, who just sort of plod on with things. The Lulus and the Allysons.
A careful man tries to dodge the bullets, while a happy man takes a walk.
The rain keeps up throughout the next day. “Lovely English summer we’re having,” everyone jokes.
And then I went to take my mouth to hers, to devour her alive, to transmit all the things she can’t understand.
She’s generous as an oil baron and loyal as a pit bull.
My entire body is shaking. I’m losing it. A day might be just twenty-four hours but sometimes getting through just one seems as impossible as scaling Everest.
We’ll tell our secrets to the dark.
My anger feels hot and bilious but I keep it bottled until it doubles back and I’m mad at myself.
There is a world of difference, Lulu, between falling in love and being in love.
Why not? Tell me. You owe me this!” She looks at me, square in the eye. Taking aim. And then she pulls the trigger. “Because I hated you.” The wind, the noise it all just goes quiet for a second, and I’m left with a dull ringing in my ear, like a after a show, like a after a heart monitor goes to flatline. “Hated me? Why?” “Because you made me stay.
I’m crying out of gratitude.
This day, so seared in my memory, is just another day to everyone else.
But in my family, playing music was still more important than the type of music you played, so when after a few months it became clear that my love for the cello was no passing crush, my parents rented me one so I could practice at home. Rusty scales and triads.
She mock shudders the way you do when you talk about someone’s misfortunes that have nothing to do with you, that don’t touch you, and never will. I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but for one minute I want to punch her in the face, give her a taste of the pain she’s so casually describing.
My dad used to say that when I was born I looked so totally familiar.
Pete and Repeat went out in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was saved?
A wicked sense of humor, this one.
Adam has about a foot and fifty pounds on Kim, but after stumbling for a second, she adjusts to the added burden. She bears it.
What about your parents? You can’t let them down? Even if it means letting yourself down? Which I doubt they’d want for you. I understand about wanting to please your parents, to make them proud. It’s a noble impulse, and I commend you for it. But at the end of the day, it’s your education. You have to own it. And you should enjoy it.
Firefly, it is an act of bravery to feel your feelings. Oh, Meg would’ve loved that. It’s an act of bravery to feel your feelings, even if your feelings are telling you to die.