If the decision you’ve made has brought you closer to humanity, then you’ve done the right thing.
I love that the girl who blushes so easily in my arms is the same one who would kill a man for hurting me.
I have never claimed to live by any set of principles,” Warner says to me. “I’ve never claimed to be right, or good, or even justified in my actions. I have been forced to do terrible things in my life, love, and I am seeking neither your forgiveness nor your approval. Because I do not have the luxury of philosophizing over scruples when I’m forced to act on basic instinct every day.
Who says you can’t be cute and kick ass at the same time?” Kenji winks at me. “I do it every day.
I cannot let the broken girl inside of me inhale all that I’ve become. I cannot revert back to another version of myself. I will not shatter, not again, in the wake of an emotional earthquake.
She’d decided long ago that life was a long journey. She would be strong and she would be weak, and both would be okay.
Why must you look like the rest of us? Why do you have to be the one to change? Change the way we see. Don’t change the way you are.
I wondered, for the very first time, if maybe I was doing this whole thing wrong. If maybe I’d allowed myself to be blinded by my own anger to the exclusion of all else. If maybe, just maybe, I’d been so determined not to be stereotyped that I’d begun to stereotype everyone around me.
People are idiots, love. Their opinions are worthless.
In the steady thrum that accompanies quiet, my mind is unkind to me. I think too much. I feel, perhaps, far more than I should. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that my goal in life is to outrun my mind, my memories.
Juliette.” I close my eyes. He says, “I don’t want you to call me Warner anymore.” I open my eyes. “I want you to know me,” he says, breathless, his fingers pushing a stray strand of hair away from my face. “I don’t want to be Warner with you,” he says. “I want it to be different now. I want you to call me Aaron.
It’s not insane to imagine that sometimes even horrible people are searching for a way out of their own darkness.
I understood too well what it was like to feel like you were defined by one superficial thing- to feel like you would never excape the box people had put you in.
I mean, I’ve always known I had a great face. But now I know, like, for sure that I’ve got a great face. And it’s just so validating.
Happiness does not happen. Happiness must be uncovered, separated from the skin of pain. It must be claimed. Kept close. Protected.
It was so much easier to fight for another than it was to fight for oneself.
This notebook might be all I have left of her. My hand is still hovering over the cover, tempting me to open it and find her again, even if it’s only for a short while, even if it’s only on paper. But part of me is terrified. This might not end well. This might not be anything I want to see. And so help me, if this turns out to be some kind of diary concerning her thoughts and feelings about Kent, I might just throw myself out the window.
Everything I want to say and everything I’ve wished to say begins to take shape, falling to the floor and scrambling upright. Paragraphs and paragraphs begin building walls around me, blocking and justifying as they find ways to fit together, linking and weaving and leaving no room for escape. And every single space between every unspoken word clambers up and into my open mouth, down my throat and into my chest, filling me with so much emptiness I think I might just float away.
I’m having a panic attack, you inconsiderate ass.
You’ve been on the edge of insanity your entire life, haven’t you? So many people called you crazy you actually started to believe it. You wondered if they were right. You wondered if you could fix it. You though if you could just try a little harder, be a little better, smarter, nicer – you thought the world would change its mind about you. You blamed yourself for everything.