My body has gotten so used to hunger that I don’t know how to recognize it anymore.
Mother often said that she could never be bothered to understand why Alice did the things she did, and now, more than ever, Alice thought never being bothered was a very lazy way to love someone.
Every single time you claim to understand even a fraction of what I’m feeling, I want to disembowel you. I want to sever your carotid artery. I want to rip out your vertebrae, one by one. You have no idea what it is to love her,” he says angrily. “You couldn’t even begin to imagine. So stop trying to understand.
I want to hurt people all the time,” he says. “Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because I’m thinking about all the people I’d like to murder.
I follow his eyes to the pane of glass separating us from reality and I wait for his lips to part; I wait to listen to him speak. And then I try to pay attention as his words bounce around in the haze of my head, fogging my senses, misting my eyes, clouding my concentration.
My lips curve around the shape of his name. I’m surprised to discover how much I love the easy, familiar way the sound rolls off my tongue.
The afternoon our story begins, the quiet parts of being alive were the busiest: wind unlocking Windows; rainlight nudging curtains apart; fresh-cut grass tickling unsocked feet. Days like this made Alice want to set off on a great adventure.
His silence says so much. I can almost reach out and touch the guilt growing on his shoulders.
My eyes flick up to the pane of glass punched into the wall. Pinks and reds filter into the room and I know it’s the start of a new beginning. The start of the same end. Another day.
Alice jumped from flagstone to flagstone, her face caught in the rainlight glow, her hand grasping for a touch of gold. The towns excitement was contagious, and the air was so thick with promise Alice could almost bite into it.
But, Oliver,” she said, squeezing his hand, “I didn’t like you because you were one of the most sincerely rude people I’d ever met. You were arrogant and unkind and a horrible, raging skyhole.
I feel as though my history is being rewritten, infinite paragraphs scratched out and hastily revised. Old and new images – memories – layer atop each other until the ink runs, rupturing the scenes into something new, something incomprehensible.
But it’s my wedding day,” she says. “And I have nothing to wear.” “You’re right.” I kiss the top of her head. “I’m going to kill him.
The pain became a drumbeat; a rhythm I could write a song to. It was always there, stark and steady, rarely abating. I learned to drown out the sound during the day, but at night it screamed through the hole in my chest.
I feel so shy so suddenly. So blind, so unnecessarily bold.
I say something decidedly ungentlemanly under my breath.
Sometimes I wonder if the planets are still up there, still aligned, still managing to get along after all this time. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.
I don’t want to be anything for anyone but myself.
He reminds me of someone I used to know. One sharp breath and I’m shocked back to reality. No more daydreams. “Why are you here?” I ask the cracks in the concrete wall. 14 cracks in 4 walls a thousand shades of gray.
Adam has to work to defend himself against me and I’m exhausting him. I’m making him sick and I’m weakening his body and if he ever slips again. If he ever forgets. If he ever makes a mistake or loses focus or becomes too aware of the fact that he’s using his gift to control what I might do –.