I could never hate you, even if I wanted to.
Love messes you up and makes you do strange things.
My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn’t think I would make it.
Most life is spent doing things we don’t want to do.
The good soldier swears to kill. Fire the cannon, mount the barricade, lock and load. Smell your brother’s blood on your shirt. Wipe your sister’s brains off your face. Die, if you have to, so they’ll live. Kill to keep your people alive, live to kill some more.
I had let down my shields, that was the problem. The crazy inside Dad had infected me, weakened me so that when Finn smiled, I’d been vulnerable. I’d dropped my shields and let myself pretend that somebody like Finn would want to be with somebody like me.
I was in a race to see if I would die from the outside in or the inside out.
Don’t forget how to be gentle,” she warned. “Don’t let the hardness of the world steal the softness of your heart.
I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here.
It had become easier to lie about most things because it didn’t hurt as much when he ignored me.
You’d be shocked at how many adults are already dead inside, walking around with no clue, waiting for a heart attack or cancer to finish the job. When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time. It’s the saddest thing I know.
Mr. Freeman thinks I need to find my feelings. How can I not find them? They are chewing me alive like an infestation of thoughts, shame, mistakes. I squeeze my eyes shut. Jeans that fit, that’s a good start. I have to stay away from the closet, go to all my classes. I will make myself normal. Forget the rest of it.
Maybe your son didn’t get that job because he’s not good enough. Or he’s lazy. Or the other guy was better than him, no matter what his skin color. I think the white people who have been here for two hundred years are the ones pulling down the country. They don’t know how to work – they’ve had it too easy.
Flames curled out of all the windows next door. The rooftop beyond that was a lake of fire. Every building in sight was burning. The air was filled with crackling and popping sounds, with shrieks and screams coming from the street below.
The girl reflected back from the window in front of me has poinsettias growing out of her belly and head. She’s the shape of a breakfast-link sausage standing on broomstick legs, her arms made from twigs, her face blurred with an eraser. I know that this is me, but it’s not me, not really. I don’t know what I look like. I can’t remember how to look.
The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up. That’s when they can hear us true.
Gloaming,” Dad said. “What?” “That word I couldn’t remember. Gloaming. That short, murky time between half-light and dark.
If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl?
The world turns upside down every day.
Gracie’s father was an engineer, her mother an accountant. I couldn’t picture either one of them yelling or throwing things or having affairs. I could see my dad doing stuff like that. Trish sure did. But Dad carried a war in his skull, and Trish was a drunk. Gracie’s parents didn’t have anything like that to deal with, but their daughter was falling apart on the bathroom floor.