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.
Hope hurt more than the cold.
Face flushed, I shook my head and stared at my white-knuckled grip on the bed. Of all my pet peeves, condescending adults were probably at the top of the list.
Teenagers want to be able to fight for what’s right – but finding out what’s right is now 90 percent of the battle.
Really, Rachel looked like a sun, bright and exuding energy, holding us two moons in a parallel orbit by the sheer force of her will.
I wasn’t sure which of us was being more selfish – her, for wanting something that no one could promise, or me, for not promising her something that was too painfully impossible to want.
You needn’t tell a bird it’s a bird. Or remind a fish of its purpose. It’s only us who lose our way. We have names because we must. – from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter.
I sat on the hill, the wind whispering through the long grass that surrounded me. I stared at the stars and wanted more than what I was and more than what the world was and just – wanted.
It was as if I had thought all along I was a complete picture and he had revealed I was a puzzle and had taken me apart and put me back together again.
This is Rilke. I wish I had written it for you.
The fact was, I didn’t know if I was built for happy endings.
Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species.