You can’t be really happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes. You know that, right?
Funny how in really serious moments people always say the stupidest things.
But that’s the beauty of life: time is yours to keep and to change. Just a few minutes can be sufficient to carve a new road, a new track.
It’s much better this way,” he said. “Change is just another word for disappointment, you know.
Julian sucks in a deep breath. Then, all in a rush, he says, “I love you.” Just as I blurt out, “Don’t say it.” There’s another beat of silence. Julian looks startled. “What?” he finally says. I wish I could take the words back. I wish I could say I love you, too. But the words are caught in the cage of my chest. “Julian, you have to know how much I care about you.” I try to touch him, and he jerks backward. “Don’t,” he says.
It does seem like the chocolate brings good luck.
With the same people who had never dreamed their way out of here.
The rest you have to find out for yourself.
People do terrible things, sometimes, for the best reasons. “What’s.
What did Saturday’s used to taste like? Like eggs and fried ham and the bitter smell of hair in heavy rollers. Like long quiet hours and making up after a fight. Like ointment and bruising. Like waiting, especially, for something – anything – to happen.
I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I’ve always known it would. Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and change and disappear, some behind a different face or personality, some behind a dense early morning fog, beyond a cliff.
He smiled, and behind his eyes were doors that opened and said come in.
Days pass, time ticks away, seconds click forward like dominoes toppling in a line.
There was always a way up, and out, and no need to be afraid.
The old Lena is dead,” I say, and then push past him, back down through the gully toward the camp. Each step is more difficult than the last; the heaviness fills me and turns my limbs to stone. You must hurt, or be hurt. Alex.
I thought you were dead,” I say. “It almost killed me.” “Did it?” His voice is neutral. “You made a pretty fast recovery.
But his enthusiasm is infectious. The whole park is buzzing with it; a sound perceived but not exactly heard, a sense of anticipation like the moment just before all the crickets start singing at night.
Then I see them: Tack and Hunter jogging toward us, rifles in hand, thin and pale and haggard and alive.
That thing – the heart of hearts of me, the core of my core – stretches and unfurls even further, soaring like a flag: making me feel stronger than I ever have before. I.
We are all Hangmen.