It occurred to me then that I was the opposite of my father. Because I was very, very good at destroying things.
This is a love story. I never knew there were so many kinds of love or that love could make people do so many different things. I never knew there were so many different ways to say goodbye.
Because you know that’s not how you want it to end. You know I’d love to have you with me, and it will be that way, one day. But this isn’t the way it ought to happen.
As I handed her the bag, the old scars on my wrist throbbed with buried memories.
Without turning on the light, I went to my bed and lay down, my arm thrown across the mattress, my hand aching because Grace wasn’t underneath it.
Not dead-dying. Funny how two things could be so similar and yet so far apart.
Every third step I ran, my breath exploded out of me all in a rush. One step to suck in another cold lungful. One step to let it excape. One step of not breathing.
I’d always liked jogging because it was a place to think.
Get some money, buy a red coffeepot, move out. Find a new place to plug it in.
I had risked everything, and I had nothing to show for it but my open hand, lying empty and palm up toward the ceiling.
Rilke says: Verweilung, auch am Verstrautesten nicht, ist uns gegeben – We are not allowed to linger, even with what is most intimate.
It’s rude to stare, but the great thing about staring at a sedated person is that they don’t know you’re doing it.
It felt wrong to be so proud of something that I had absolutely nothing to do with, but I couldn’t help myself.
When he kissed me, his lips soft and careful, it was all the thrill of our first kiss and all the practiced familiarity of the accumulated memory of all our kisses.
Don’t give me that look. I’m not trying to find out who you are. I don’t care who you are. I just want to know why it is you are the way you are.
I turned back to my extracurricular study of death and disease. Because no matter what Grace thought, I knew that in Mercy Falls, it’s never over.
But by blood, no wolf am I.
I considered calling Grace to ask her what I should say to a reticent suicidal werewolf, but I’d left my phone somewhere. Car, maybe.
I tired the back door – unlocked. Truley the Man Upstairs was smiling down on me.
As you learn who you are, you can better surround yourself with friends who make you a better person, and that sometimes only happens when you disassemble old relationships.