People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they’re not. There’s no telling how long you will have them near. A year ago I could not have imagined that Josh would no longer be a constant for me. I couldn’t have conceived of how hard it would be to not see Margot every day, how lost I would feel without her – or how easily Josh could slip away, without me even realizing. It’s the good-byes that are hard.
Can you also write down that under no circumstances can either of us tell anyone the truth?” I ask him. “The first rule of Fight Club,” Peter says knowingly. “I’ve never seen that movie.” “Of course you haven’t,” he says, and I make a face at him. Also: mental note, watch Fight Club.
She would probably lump Chris in with the party girls, the girls who sleep around, the girls who aren’t “better than that.” She would be wrong. We’re all the same.
A hundred years ago eighteen-year-old guys were out there fighting wars with bayonets and holding a man’s life in their hands! They lived a lot of life by the time they were our age. What do kids our age know about love and life?
The thing is, you get used to it. Before you even realise it’s happening, you get used to things being different...
I trust that when the time comes, I will know what’s best.
In truth, if Kitty’s anyone, she’s a Jefferson. Wily, stylish, quick with a comeback. Margot’s an Angelica, no question. She’s been sailing her own ship since she was a little girl. She’s always known who she was and what she wanted. I suppose I’m an Eliza, though I’d much rather be an Angelica. In truth I’m probably And Peggy. But I don’t want to be the And Peggy of my own story. I want to be the Hamilton.
But it feels like everything all around me is shifting in ways I didn’t expect, when all I want is for things to stand still.
She’d mopped the floors that morning; they were shiny and everything smelled like lemons and clean house. The phone was ringing in the kitchen, she came running in to answer it, and she slipped. She hit her head on the floor, and she was unconscious, but then she woke up and she was fine. That was her lucid interval. That’s what they call it. A little while later she said she had a headache, she went to lie down on the couch, and then she didn’t wake up.
Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers. Like I don’t really begin living until June, until I’m at that beach.
You keep your summer house and your summer boys all to yourself and you don’t want to share anything with me. We finally get to spend a whole summer together and you don’t even care! All you care about is being in Cousins, with them.
I felt it a week before we left, every time. And then of course, when the time came, I was never ready to leave. I wanted to stay forever.
I know most sisters don’t get along, but I’m closer to Margot than I am to anybody in the world.
You’re going, so take this contract back.
Once I asked her why she didn’t like nuts on her sundae, and she said she did like them, but I loved them. And she loved me.
I’m not what? As pretty as Genevieve?
Longing is its own kind of perverse delight.
Josh and I started out so easy, so fun, and now we’re like strangers. I’ll never have that person back, who I knew better than anyone and who knew me so well.” I feel a pinch in my heart. When she says it that way, it’s so sad. “You could become friends again, after some time has passed.” But it wouldn’t be the same, I know that. You’d always be mourning.
Let’s let people think we’re a couple.
A good scrapbook has texture. It’s thick and chunky and doesn’t close all the way.