They say you never know what you would do in a hypothetical situation. We’d all like to think we’d be one of the people who gave up their lifejackets and waved a stoic good-bye from the slanting deck of the titanic, someone who jumped in front of a bullet for a stranger, or turned and raced back up the stairs of one of the towers, in search of someone who needed help rather than our own security. But you just don’t know for sure if, when things fall apart, you’ll think safety first, or if safety will be the last thing on your mind.
I finally get that sometimes we hold on to something – a person, a resentment, a regret, an idea of who we are – because we don’t know what to reach for next. That what we’ve done before is what we have to do again. That there are only re-dos and no do-overs. And maybe... maybe I know better than that.
God, I hate it when people even say there are types, like people come in flavors.
It’s not rocket science, Nan. You show someone they matter to you – do whatever it takes to show that.
I could always get by on a fake ID, calm face, and a smile. My sister could look guilty saying her prayers.
Blood may be thicker than chlorine, but hormones seem to scramble the equation.
Maybe thinking any one person can show up and give you all you need is as much of a delusion as thinking you can find truth in a bottle. Maybe you can just find what you need in little pieces, in people who show up for one crucial moment – or a whole chain of them – even if they can’t solve it all. Maybe this is the secret of big families, like the Garretts... and like AA. People’s strengths can take their turn. There can be more of us than there is trouble.
Tim Mason. The human equivalent of C-4.
You can choose where your feet take you, man. That’s Dominic again, who’s like my own little Jiminy Cricket, Portuguese fisherman style.
I’ve been sober nearly two months, but I have yet to go cold turkey on assholicism.
I love you too, my Sam.
This boy. Eyes on my face again, little smile lurking, just barely parenthesizing the corners of his lips. He lifts his eyebrows, waiting. And willing to. However long.
Grace Reed: the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every wake.
Making love. I’ve cringed every time Hester used those words. So off and awkward and unrelated to what actually goes on between two bodies. You make breakfast, you make time, you make the team. Love? Not so much. But I get it now. Like making fire. Not rubbing two sticks together to pull something out of thin air. More like finally being able, knowing enough, to warm your hands at something you built, stick by stick.
Like the whole wide world is dazzling with potential. Another word for hope.
People’s strengths can take their turn. There can be more of us than their is trouble.
Could this guy sound a little less like a fortune cookie on acid?
Even though this is something I know I want, I start to panic a little, until I remember the person I trust more than anyone else in the world. Jase. And I decide he’s right. We’ll figure it out together.
More than anything in the world I want to tell him the truth. From the start, it’s been easy to tell him that, truths I’ve never told anyone. He’s always listened and understood. But there’s no way to understand this. How can he, when I don’t understand it myself.
That prickling feeling when something’s not right. That calm feeling when it is.