Write like it matters, and it will.
Why do girls always feel like they have to apologize for giving an opinion or taking up space in the world? Have you ever noticed that?” Nicole asked. “You go on websites and some girl leaves a post and if it’s longer than three sentences or she’s expressing her thoughts about some topic, she usually ends with, ‘Sorry for the rant’ or ‘That may be dumb, but that’s what I think.
Felicity ignores us. She walks out to them, an apparition in white and blue velvet, her head held high as they stare in awe at her, the goddess. I don’t know yet what power feels like. But this is surely what it looks like, and I think I’m beginning to understand why those ancient women had to hide in caves. Why our parents and suitors want us to behave properly and predictably. It’s not that they want to protect us; it’s that they fear us.
We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity. We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and our present. The future is unwritten. This is a book about ghosts. For we live in a haunted house.
What Hamlet suffers from is a lack of zombies. Let us say Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up – Ho-HO! Now you’ve got something that stirs the, um, something that stirs things that are stirrable. BOOM! A pack of ravenous flesh-eaters breaks open their heads and sucks out their eyeballs. No need for iambic pentameter because they are grunting, groaning annihilators of humanity with no time for meter. You’re not asleep in the back of English class anymore, are you? This is what I’m talking about. Zombies. Learn it, live it, love it.
My platform’s called Don’t Even Think About It. I go to schools and I say, ‘Whatever bad thing it is you’re thinking of doing, don’t even think about it. ‘Cause I can see into your soul, and I will hide in your closet and come for you in the night, and the last sound you ever hear will be my sharp teeth popping through the flesh of my gums, ready to eat you.’ Their eyes get all big. It’s awesome. I love little kids, man. They’re the cutest.
For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning.
There was such fear in the world. But love was everywhere if you looked. It was the best thing about humans. That they could stare into the abyss and still open up their hearts. A spit in the eye to fear.
We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.
Come awake, Tom. Fathers can willfully hurt their children. They can be addicts too weak to give up their vices, no matter the pain it causes. Mothers can turn you invisible with neglect. They can erase you with a denial, a refusal to see. Friends can deceive you. People lie. It is a cold, hard world. I do not blame Nell Hawkins for retreating from it into a madness of her own choosing.
We are made by what we are asked to bear, Ling Chan,” he’d said.
The colonizer writes the history, winning twice: A theft of land. A theft of witness.
All the times I say, ‘Don’t see me’? With you, I wish I had an opposite power: See me. See me, Evie. See all of me. There’s a fella who loves you right here. I’m not perfect. I’m a handful. But you know what? So are you. There. Not sugarcoating it.
The ladies pass the timee with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom- gime and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or even correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the gallows on my own strength.
But how did you fight an enemy who never fought fair? Didn’t you have to break the rules to win against the Devil?
It was funny how their odd little family of friends had changed him. Made him feel safe. Theta, Memphis, Henry, Jericho, Mabel, Ling, Isaiah, and especially Evie. They’d been there for him. Opened the parts of him he was afraid would be closed off forever. Why had he wasted so much time bottling up his feelings? What did that ever get anybody but dumb fights? He had friends. He had a home in them. And Evie was home, too.
For the first time, I notice the lax skin at Mrs. Nightwing’s jaw, the fine down that lies upon her cheek like the imprint of a childe’s hand, and I wonder what it must be like watching yourself soften under the years, unable to stop it. what it’s like measuring your days in perfecting girls’ curtsies and drinking nightly glasses of sherry, trying to keep up with the world as it pulls you spinning into the furure, knowing you are always one step behind it.
Before the Devil breaks you, first he will make you love him. Beware, little sister. Beware the King of Crows!
Gonzo narrows his eyes. ‘How often do you clean that thing?’ ‘Every night,’ the waitress answers. Her smile is strained. ‘That’s it? Do you know how long it takes for Listeria to grow under those hot lamps, even with ice?’ Here we go. ‘It can happen in just five hours. Five hours and you’ve got the salad bar of death!’ The waitress looks confused. ‘From Listerine?
He loved her. Was in love with her. Had always loved her. And it seemed that she loved him, too. It was funny how the world could change on a dime like that. One minute, you were some poor chump pining after a girl you thought didn’t feel the same way about you, and the next, you were lying together, arms entwined, chest to chest, so close you could feel her heartbeat under her soft skin. You were looking into her eyes and seeing your whole future written there.