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And This, Really, Is The Story-within-the-story, Because If You Do Not Believe That Hearts Can Bloom Suddenly Bigger, And That Love Can Open Like A Flower Out Of Even The Hardest Places, Then I Am Afraid That For You The World Will Be Long And Brown And Barren, And You Will Have Trouble Finding The Light. But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

-Lauren Oliver

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And This, Really, Is

Lauren Oliver

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And This, Really, Is The Story-within-the-story, Because If You Do Not Believe That Hearts Can Bloom Suddenly Bigger, And That Love Can Open Like A Flower Out Of Even The Hardest Places, Then I Am Afraid That For You The World Will Be Long And Brown And Barren, And You Will Have Trouble Finding The Light. But If You Do Believe, Then You Already Know All About Magic.

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Why Couldn't You Let Me Have It? Why Did You Have To Take It? Why Did You Always Take Everything?

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No One Can Tell Us No. No One Can Make Us Stop. We Have Picked Each Other And The Rest Of The World Can Go To Hell.

That's The Thing About Best Friends. That's What They Do. They Keep You From Spinning Off The Edge.

This Is Pretty Much The Answer To Every Problem You Encounter In Suburbia: Plant A Tree, And Hope You Don't See Anyone's Privates.

Everyone You Trust, Everyone You Think You Can Count On, Will Eventually Disappoint You.

I’ve Never Really Had A Party Before.” “why Did You Have One Now?” I Say, Just To Keep Him Talking. He Gives A Half Laugh. “i Thought If I Had A Party, You Would Come.

You Can Build Walls All The Way To The Sky And I Will Find A Way To Fly Above Them.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

Everything Looks Stark And Vivid And Frozen, As Though Drawn Precisely And Outlined In Ink - Parents' Smiles Frozen, Camera Flashes Blinding, Mouths Open And White Teeth Glinstening, Dark Glossy Hair And Deep Blue Sky And Unrelenting Light, Everyone Drowning In Light - Everything So Clear And Perfect I'm Sure It Must Already Be A Memory, Or A Dream.

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Maybe Next Time

There's Still Always The Possibility That I've Gone Totally, Clinically Cuckoo. But Somehow I Don't Think So Anymore. An Article I Once Read Said That Crazy People Don't Worry About Being Crazy - That's The Whole Problem.

But How Could Anyone Who's Ever Seen A Summer - Big Explosion Of Green And Skies Lit Up Electric With Splashy Sunsets, A Riot Of Flowers And Wind That Smells Like Honey - Pick The Snow?

All Of You, Wherever You Are: In Your Spiny Cities, Or Your One-bump Towns. Find It, The Hard Stuff, The Links Of Metal And Chink, The Fragments Of Stone Filling Your Stomach. And Pull, And Pull, And Pull. I Will Make A Pact With You: I Will Do It If You Will Do It, Always And Forever. Take Down The Walls.

I Don't Know How I Stay On My Feet, Why I Don;t Just Shatter Into Dust Right There, Why My Heart Keeps Beating When I Want It So Badly To Stop

I Cry For Everything I Abandoned And Because I, Too, Have Been Left Behind -- By Alex, By My Mom, By Time That Has Cut Through Our Worlds And Separated Us.

I Wish I Could Close My Eyes And Be Blown Into Dust And Nothingness, Feel All My Thoughts Disperse Like Dandelion Fluff Drifting Off On The Wind. But His Hands Keep Pulling Me Back: Into The Alley, And Portland, And A World That Has Suddenly Stopped Making Sense.

The Reason You Can Never Go Home Again Isn't Necessarily That Places Change, But People Do. So Nothing Ever Looks The Same.

Funny How Time Heals. Like That Bullet In My Ribs. It's There, I Know It's There, But I Can Barely Feel It At All Anymore.

My Boyfriend's An Idiot," I Say As Soon As He Lurches Away."a Cute Idiot," Ally Corrects Me."that's Like Saying 'a Cute Mutant.' Doesn't Exist.

I Hate Skin; I Hate Bones And Bodies. I Want To Curl Up Inside Of Him And Be Carried There Forever.

But It Does Not Tell You This: That Love Will Turn The Whole World Into Something Greater Than Itself.

There Are More Of Us Than You Think.

Hope Keeps You Alive.

Love: It Will Kill You And Save You, Both

This Is What Happens When You Try To Help People. You Get Screwed.

But For Now, The Future, Like The Past, Means Nothing. For Now, There Is Only A Homestead Built Of Trash And Scraps, At The Edge Of A Broken City, Just Beyond A Towering City Dump; And Our Arrival-hungry, And Half-frozen, To A Place Of Food And Water And Walls That Keep Out The Brutal Winds. This, For Us, Is Heaven.

Fear. Blame. Don't Forget. Mom. I Love You. -lauren Oliver, Delerium

Raven Jerks And Stiffens. For A Second, I Think She Is Only Surprised: Her Mouth Goes Round, Her Eyes Wide. Then She Begins Teetering Backward, And I Know That She Is Dead. Falling, Falling, Falling . . .

You See, We Didn't Know.

He Is Looking At Me Through The Smoke, Across The Fence. He Never Takes His Eyes Off Me. His Hair Is A Crown Of Leaves, Of Thorns, Of Flames. His Eyes Are Blazing With Light, More Light Than All The Lights In Every City In The Whole World, More Light Than We Could Ever Invent If We Had Ten Thousand Billion Years.

And How She Looked At Me Like I Could Save Her From Everything Bad In He World. This Was My Secret: She Was The One Who Saved Me

Welcome To The Free World. We Give People The Power To Choose. They Can Even Choose The Wrong Thing. Beautiful, Isn't It?

I'm Starved For Different Light, A Different Sun,different Sky.

Then I Think Of The Dark, And The Lights, And The Roaring, And Juliet, And Before I Can Think Of Anything Else, I Fight The Final Few Steps To The Door And Step Out Into The Cold, Where The Rain Is Still Coming Down Like Shards Of Moonlight, Or Like Steel.

Sometimes I Feel Like If You Just Watch Things, Just Sit Still And Let The World Exist In Front Of You - Sometimes I Swear That Just For A Second Time Freezes And The World Pauses In Its Tilt. Just For A Second. And If You Somehow Found A Way To Live In That Second, Then You Would Live Forever.

I Guess That’s Just Part Of Loving People: You Have To Give Things Up. Sometimes You Even Have To Give Them Up.

And Even Though I'm Standing In The Middle Of The Biggest Crowd I've Ever Seen In My Life, I Suddenly Feel Very Alone.

So Are You Going To Be My Knight In Shining Armor Or What?' Kent Does A Little Bow. 'you Know I Can't Resist A Damsel In Distress.

But It's Not About Knowing. It Is Simply About Going Forward.

The First Time I Saw You, At The Governor, I Handn't Been To Watch The Birds At The Border In Years. But That's What You Reminded Me Of. You Were Jumping Up, And You Were Yelling Something, And Your Hair Was Coming Loose From Your Ponytail, And You Were So Fast..." He Shakes His Head. "just A Flash, And Then You Were Gone, Exactly Like A Bird.

How Can Someone Have The Power To Shatter You To Dust--and Also To Make You Feel So Whole?

It's Amazing How Words Can Do That, Just Shred Your Insides Apart. Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Can Never Hurt Me - Such Bullshit.

Until, One Day, She Wasn’t.

The Memories Seem Like Snapshots From Someone Else’s Life.

You Can't Tell Me What To Feel

I'm Overwhelmed With Sadness For Everything That Was Lost, And Filled With Anger Toward The People Who Took It Away. My People-or At Least, My Old People. I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore, Or Where I Belong. That's Not Totally True...i Know I Belong With Alex.

We All Need Mantras, I Guess - Stories We Tell Ourselves To Keep Us Going.

Most Things, Even The Greatest Movements On Earth, Have Their Beginnings In Something Small. An Earthquake That Shatters A City Might Begin With A Tremble, A Breath. Music Begins With A Vibration . . . And God Created The Whole Universe From An Atom No Bigger Than A Thought.

The Sun Has Just Risen, Weak And Watery-looking, Like It Had Just Spilled Itself Over The Horizon And Is Too Lazy To Clean Itself Up.

Sometimes I'm Afraid To Go To Sleep Because Of What I'm Leaving Behind.

It's An Incredible Thing, How You Can Feel So Taken Care Of By Someone And Yet Feel, Also, Like You Would Die Or Do Anything Just For The Chance To Protect Him Back.

Juliet!' I Whip Around But Not Quickly Enough. She's Swallowed By The Crowd, The Gap That Allowed Her To Break For The Door Closing Just As Quickly As It Opened, A Shifting Tetris Pattern Of Bodies.

We Leave Pippa Behind, Standing In The Dark, Teeming Bowels Of The Camp, While The Sun Begins To Stain The Sky Electric, And From All Sides The Guns Draw Closer.

Po Flickered. "thank You?" It Repeated. "what Is That?" Liesl Thought. "it Means, You Were Wonderful," She Said. "it Means, I Couldn't Have Done It Without You.

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I'm So Tired After Dinner I Fall Asleep With My Clothes On, Almost As Soon As My Head Hits The Pillow, And So I Forget To Ask God, In My Prayers, To Keep Me From Waking Up.

For All The People Who Have Infected Me With Amor Deliria Nervosa In The Past - You Know Who You Are. For The People Who Will Infect Me In The Future - I Can't Wait To See Who You'll Be. And In Both Cases: Thank You.

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Because?' I Prompt 'because I'm Sorry, But I Can't Help It, And I Really Need To Kiss You Right Now.

This Is The Language Of The World Before—a World Of Chaos And Confusion And Happiness And Despair—before The Blitz Turned Streets To Grids, Cities To Prisons, And Hearts To Dust.

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I Need Him To Know That I Came For Him. I Need Him To Know That Somehow, At Some Point In The Tunnels, I Began To Love Him.

No Wonder The Regulators Decided On Segregation Of Boys And Girls: Otherwise, It Would Have Been A Nightmare, This Feeling Angry And Self-conscious And Confused And Annoyed All The Time.

People Need Other People To Feel Things For Them," She Said. "it Gets Lonely To Feel Things All By Yourself.

Life Isn't Life If You Just Float Through It.

My Heart Shoots Into My Throat Every Time I Think I See His Loping Walk, Or Catch Sight Of Some Floppy Brown Hair On A Boy - But It's Never Him, And Each Time It Isn't, My Heart Does A Reverse Trajectory Down Into The Very Pit Of My Stomach.

That Was What Her Parents Did Not Understand—and Had Never Understood—about Stories. Liza Told Herself Storied As Though She Was Weaving And Knotting An Endless Rope. Then, No Matter How Dark Or Terrible The Pit She Found Herself In, She Could Pull Herself Out, Inch By Inch And Hand Over Hand, On The Long Rope Of Stories.

That's When You Really Lose People, You Know.when The Pain Passes.

They Told Us Love Was A Disease. They Told Us It Would Kill Us In The End. For The Very First Time I Realize, That This, Too, Might Also Be A Lie.

When You Love Someone, When You Care For Someone, You Have To Do It Through The Good And The Bad. Not Just When You're Happy And It's Easy.

When You Love Someone

Maybe All Of These Different Possibilities Exist At The Same Time, Like Each Moment We Live Has A Thousand Other Moments Layered Underneath It That Look Different.

I Don't Know Where To Go. I Don't Know What Comes Now." "don't Worry," Will Said. "we'll Figure Something Out." Liesl Managed To Smile At Him. She Liked That Word: *we*. It Sounded Warm And Open, Like A Hug.

Mary Bring Out Your Umbrella - The Sun Shines Down On This Fine, Fine Day But The Ashes Raining Down Forever Are Going To Turn Your Hair To Gray. Mary Keep Your Oars A-steady Sail Away On The Rising Flood Keep Your Candle At The Ready Red Tides Can't Be Told From Blood. - "miss Mary" (a Common Child's Clapping Game, Dating From The Time Of The Blitz), From Pattycake And Beyond: A History Of Play

And In That Moment, The Wordless Thing Passed Between Us, The Thing That Wasn't Quite Love But Was So Close I Could Believe In It Sometimes.

I'm Not Ugly But I'm Not Pretty Either. Everything Is In-between. I Have Eyes That Aren't Green Or Brown, But A Muddle. I'm Not Thin But I'm Not Fat Either. The Only Thing You Could Definitely Say About Me Is That: I'm Short

Are You Ever Afraid To Go To Sleep? Afraid Of What Comes Next?” He Smiles A Sad Little Smile And I Swear It’s Like He Knows. “sometimes I’m Afraid Of What I’m Leaving Behind,” He Says.

I Just Want To Be Normal, Like Everybody Else." "are You Sure That Being Like Everybody Else Will Make You Happy?

I've Been So Used To Thinking Of What The Borders Are Keeping Out That I Haven't Considered That They're Also Penning Us In.

But That's The Problem With Love - It Acts On You, Works Through You, Resists Your Attempts To Control.

Most People Don't Want To Be Saved. Besides, If You Keep Bailing Everybody Out, They'll Never Learn To Paddle On Their Own.

Like I've Been Sketched By An Amateur Artist: If You Don't Look Too Closely, It's All Right, But Start Focusing And All The Smudges And Mistakes Become Really Obvious.

For The First Time In A Long Time, I Actually Look At Her. I've Always Thought Lena Was Pretty, But Now It Occurs To Me That At Some Point - Last Summer? Last Year? - She Became Beautiful.

That's All I Want. Just You And Me. Always.

It Was As Though The Darkness Was A Sheet Of Raw Cookie Dough And Someone Had Just Taken A Cookie Cutter And Made A Child-sized Shape Out Of It.

Not Gray, Exactly. Right Before The Sun Rises There's A Moment When The Whole Sky Goes This Pale Nothing Color-not Really Gray But Sort Of, Or Sort Of White, And I've Always Really Liked It Because It Reminds Me Of Waiting For Something Good To Happen.

Nobody Ever Said Life Was Fair.

It Amazes Me How Easy It Is For Things To Change, How Easy It Is To Start Off Down The Same Road You Always Take And Wind Up Somewhere New. Just One False Step, One Pause, One Detour, And You End Up With New Friends Or A Bad Reputation Or A Boyfriend Or A Breakup. It's Never Occurred To Me Before; I've Never Been Able To See It. And It Makes Me Feel, Weirdly, Like Maybe All Of These Different Possibilities Exist At The Same Time, Like Each Moment We Live Has A Thousand Other Moments Layered Underneath It That Look Different.

Everytime He Brushes Me With His Fingers, Time Seems To Tether For A Second, Like It Is In Danger Of Dissolving. The Whole World Is Dissolving, I Decide, Except For Us. Us.

The Old Lena Is Dead.

And Now I Realize Lindsay's Not Fearless. She's Terrified. She's Terrified That People Will Find Out She's Faking, Bullshitting Her Way Through Life, Pretending To Have Everything Together When Really She's Just Floundering Like The Rest Of Us. Lindsay, Who Will Bite At You If You Even Look In Her Direction The Wrong Way, Like On Of Those Tiny Attack Dogs That Are Always Barking And Snapping In The Air Before They're Jerked Backward On The Chains That Keep Them In One Place.

I Love You. They Can't Take It Away.

I’ve Always Hated Being Looked At.

Everything Looks Beautiful. The Book Of Shhh Says That Deliria Alters Your Perception, Disables Your Ability To Reason Clearly, Impairs You From Making Sound Judgments. But It Does Not Tell You This: That Love Will Turn The Whole World Into Something Greater Than Itself.

I Thought If I Followed The Rules, Things Would Turn Out All Right. That's The Thing About The Cure, Isn't It? It Isn't Just About Deliria At All. It's About Order. A Path For Everyone. You Just Have To Follow It And Everything Will Be Okay. That's What The Dfa Is About. That's What I Belevied In-what I've Had To Believe In. Because Otherwise, It's Just...chaos.

And You Should Hear The Music. Incredible, Amazing Music, Like Nothing You've Ever Heard, Music That Almost Takes Your Head Off, You Know? That Makes You Want To Scream And Jump Up And Down And Break Stuff And Cry.

They Didn’t Get Me, I Should Have Said. They Saved Me.

Two Weeks Until Your Cure" She Says Finally. "sixteen Days" I Say, But In My Head I'm Counting: Seven Days. Seven Days Until I'm Free And Away From All These People And Their Sliding Superficial Lives Brushing Past One Another Gliding, Gliding, Gliding From Life To Death. For Them There's Hardly A Change Between The Two.

What Glitters May Not Be Gold; And Even Wolves May Smile; And Fools Will Be Led By Promises To Their Deaths.

I Put My Forehead On His Collarbone, Place One Hand On His Chest. Its Rhythm Reassures Me: He Is Real, And He Is Now.

We'll Walk Together Holding Hands, And Kiss In Broad Daylight, And Love Each Other As Much As We Want To, And No One Will Ever Try To Keep Up Apart.

But That's The Beauty Of Life: Time Is Yours To Keep And To Change. Just A Few Minutes Can Be Sufficient To Carve A New Road, A New Track. Just A Few Minutes, And The Void Is Kept At Bay. You Will Live Forever With That New Road Inside Of You, Stretching Away To A Place Suggested, Barely, On The Horizon. For The Shortest Time, Shorter Than The Shortest Second's Breath, You Get To Stand Up To Infinity. But Eventually, And Always, Infinity Wins.

And Even If She Isn’t—even If By Some Miracle, She Survived The Escape And Has Been Squeezing Out A Living In The Wilds—she Would Never Join Forces With The Resisters. She Would Never Be Violent Or Vengeful. Not Lena, Who Used To Practically Faint When She Pricked A Finger, Who Couldn’t Even Lie To A Teacher About Being Late. She Wouldn’t Have The Stomach For It.

The Sparrows Jumped Before They Knew How To Fly, And They Learned To Fly Only Because They Had Jumped.

This Is The Strange Way Of The World, That People Who Simply Want To Love Are Instead Forced To Become Warriors.

Maybe You Can Afford To Wait. Maybe For You There's A Tomorrow. Maybe For You There's One Thousand Tomorrows, Or Three Thousand, Or Ten, So Much Time You Can Bathe In It, Roll Around It, Let It Slide Like Coins Through You Fingers. So Much Time You Can Waste It. But For Some Of Us There's Only Today. And The Truth Is, You Never Really Know.

But You Can Build A Future Out Of Anything. A Scrap, A Flicker. The Desire To Go Forward, Slowly, One Foot At A Time. You Can Build An Airy City Out Of Ruins.

A Good Friend Keeps Your Secrets For You. A Best Friend Helps You Keep Your Own Secrets.

Keeping Secrets

Best Kept Secrets

For A Second, I Feel A Sense Of Overwhelming Grief: For How Things Change, For The Fact That We Can Never Go Back. I'm Not Certain Of Anything Anymore. I Don't Know What Will Happen--

My Wild, Uncured, Erratic, Incomprehensible Heart.

It's Funny How You Can Know Your Friends So Well, But You Still End Up Playing The Same Games With Them.

If You Cross A Line And Nothing Happens, The Line Loses Meaning.

Perhaps This Was How The Sparrows Did It Too; Perhaps They Were Looking So Hard At The Peaks And Tips Of The New Rooftops Coated With Dew, And The Vast New Horizon, That They Only Forgot That They Did Not Know How To Fly Until They Were Already In Midair.

Yeah, But Our Choices Are Limited. We Choose From A List That They Chose For Us." She Said. "well, Choices Are Supposed To Be Limited. That's Life" I Snapped

At The Same Time I Know That It’s Not Really Their Fault, At Least Not Completely. I Did My Part Too. I Did It On A Hundred Different Days And In A Thousand Different Ways, And I Know It. But This Makes The Anger Worse, Not Better.

Hearts Are Fragile Things. That's Why You Have To Be So Careful.

This Is What Hatred Is. It Will Feed You And At The Same Time Turn You To Rot.

Alex Loved Books. He Was The One Who First Introduced Me To Poetry. That's Another Reason I Can't Read Anymore.

This Is What I Want. This Is The Only Thing I've Ever Wanted. Everything Else—every Single Second Of Every Single Day That Has Come Before This Very Moment, This Kiss—has Meant Nothing.

Suicide. A Sideways Word, A Word That People Whisper And Mutter And Cough: A Word That Must Be Squeezed Out Behind Cupped Palms Or Murmured Behind Closed Doors. It Was Only In Dreams That I Heard The Word Shouted, Screamed.

You Can't Be Happy Unless You're Unhappy Sometimes".

It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me. And I Don't Care.

It's Weird How Much People Change. For Example, When I Was A Kid I Loved All Of These Things..and Over Time All Of Them Just Fell Away, One After Another, Replaced By Friends And Iming And Cell Phones And Boys And Clothes. It's Kind Of Sad, If You Think About It. Like There's No Continuity In People At All. Like Something Ruptures When You Hit Twelve, Or Thirteen, Or Whatever The Age Is When You're No Longer A Kid But A "young Adult," And After That You're A Totally Different Person. Maybe Even A Less Happy Person. Maybe Even A Worse One.

Everything I See And Touch Reminds Me Of Him, And So Everything I See And Touch Is Perfect.

In A World Without Love, This Is What People Are To Each Other: Values, Benefits, And Liabilities, Numbers And Data. We Weigh, We Quantify, We Measure, And The Soul Is Ground To Dust.

Nothing Exists But Him.

Sarah: "not Bad. You Look Almost Human." Lena: "thanks." Sarah: "i Said Almost." Lena: "well, Then, Almost Thanks.

They Haven't Killed Us Yet," I Say, And I Imagine That One Day I Will Fly A Plane Over Portland, Over Rochester, Over Every Fenced-in City In The Whole Country, And I Will Bomb And Bomb And Bomb, And Watch All Their Buildings Smoldering To Dust, And All Those People Melting And Bleeding Into Flame, And I Will See How They Like It. If You Take, We Will Take Back. Steal From Us, And We Will Rob You Blind. When You Squeeze, We Will Hit. This Is The Way The World Is Made Now.

It Is War Now, And Armies Need Symbols.

Only When It Rains. And Sometimes, Too, When I Remember.

Could It Be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On A Friday?” I Roll My Eyes. “i Don’t Know. Did You Do A Lot Of Acid In The Sixties? Could Be A Flashback.” “i Was Two Years Old In 1960. I Came Too Late For The Party.” He Leans Down And Pecks Me On The Head. I Pull Away Out Of Habit. “and I’m Not Even Going To Ask How You Know About Acid Flashbacks.” “what’s An Acid Flashback?” Izzy Crows. “nothing,” My Dad And I Say At The Same Time, And He Smiles At Me.

It's Going To Be Okay. Words That Mean Nothing. Really, Just Sounds Intoned Into Vastness And Darkness, Little Scrabbling Attempts To Latch On To Something When We're Falling.

Fridays Are The Hardest In Some Ways: You’re So Close To Freedom.

That's What Zombieland Is: Frozen, Calm, Quiet.

The Rules Of Panic Are Simple. Anyone Can Enter. But Only One Person Will Win.

And You Can't Love, Not Fully, Unless You Are Loved In Return.

Waste Today, Want Tomorrow.

I Wonder Whether She Was Sorry For Leaving Us Behind.

Alex Is Dead, Do You Hear Me? All Of That-what We Felt, What It Meant- That's Done Now, Okay? Buried. Blown Away.

You Have To Understand. I Wasn't Just Thinking Of Me. I Was Thinking Of Her, Too.

Thinking Of Her

No Guest Rooms.” I Shake My Head Resolutely. “i Want To Be In A Room Room. A Lived-in Room.

I Used To Lie Here Like This All Summer Long,' I Tell Her. 'i'd Come Up Here And Just Stare At The Sky.' She Rolls Over On Her Back So She's Staring Up As Well. 'bet This View Hasn't Changed Much, Has It?' What She Says Is So Simple I Almost Laugh. She's Right, Of Course. 'no. This Looks Exactly The Same.' I Suppose That's The Secret, If You're Ever Wishing For Things To Go Back To The Way They Were. You Just Have To Look Up.

I Shiver, Thinking How Easy It Is To Be Totally Wrong About People-to See One Tiny Part Of Them And Confuse It For The Whole, To See The Cause And Think It's The Effect Or Vice Versa

And I Guess That's When It Starts To Hit Me: The Whole Point Is, You Do What You Can.

Here's Another Thing To Remember: Hope Keeps You Alive. Even When You're Dead, It's The Only Thing That Keeps You Alive.

No Wonder The Regulators Decided On Segregation Of Boys And Girls: Otherwise, It Would Have Been A Nightmare, This Feeling Angry And Self-conscious And Confused And Annoyed All The Time.

Because I Think You're Right. You Can Make A Difference." He Told Me Experiences Were Kind Of Like Fate, And Fate Usually Came In The Form Of A Test. He Told Me Fate Liked To Be Worshiped. It Liked To See Us Fall On Out Knees Before It Offered To Help Us Up..." ♥

It Occurs To Me That For A Long Time She Has Been Doing Her Own Version Of Resisting.

They Say That The Cure For Love Will Make Me Happy And Safe Forever. And I’ve Always Believed Them. Until Now. Now Everything Has Changed. Now, I’d Rather Be Infected With Love For The Tiniest Sliver Of A Second Than Live A Hundred Years Smothered By A Lie

The Deadliest Of All Deadly Things: It Kills You Both When You Have It And When You Don’t.

We Can Never Understand. We Can Only Try, Fumbling Our Way Through The Tunneled Places, Reaching For Light.

He Looked At Me Like I Was Beautiful.

I Think Of The Quietness Of Julian's Voice As He Said I Love You, The Steadiness Of His Rib Cage Rising And Falling Against My Back, As We Sleep.i Love You, Julian. But The Words Don't Come.

Are You Sure That Being Like Everybody Else Will Make You Happy?" "i Don't Know Any Other Way." "let Me Show You." And Then We're Kissing. Or At Least, I Think We're Kissing—i've Only Seen It Done A Couple Of Times, Quick Closed-mouth Pecks At Weddings Or On Formal Occasions. But This Isn't Like Anything I've Ever Seen, Or Imagined, Or Even Dreamed: This Is Like Music Or Dancing But Better Than Both.

....love And Desire Enjoy A Symbiotic Relationship, Meaning That One Cannot Exist Without The Other. Desire Is An Enemy To Contentment; Desire Is Illness, A Feverish Brain. Who Can Be Considered Healthy Who Wants? The Very Word Want Suggests A Lack, An Impoverishment, And That Is What Desire Is: An Impoverishment Of The Brain, A Flaw, A Mistake.

But Hope Got In, No Matter How Hard And Fast I Tried To Stomp It Out. Like These Tiny Fire Ants We Used To Get In Portland. No Matter How Fast You Liked Them, There Were Always More, A Steady Stream Of Them, Resistant, Ever-multiplying. Maybe, The Hope Said. Maybe.

Happiness Is Found When No One Is Looking

There Are No Happy Endings, Only Breaks In The Regular Action.

This Is What Amazes Me: That People Are New Every Day. That They Are Never The Same. You Must Always Invent Them, And They Must Always Invent Themselves, Too.

The Salt Blowing Off The Sea Makes The Air Feel Textured And Heavy.

He Is No Longer Mine To Lose, But The Grief Is There, A Gnawing Sense Of Disbelief.

The Tunnels May Be Long, And Twisted, And Dark; But You Are Supposed To Go Through Them.

Lies Are Just Stories, And Stories Are All That Matter. We All Tell Stories. Some Are More Truthful Than Others, Maybe, But In The End The Only Thing That Counts Is What You Can Make People Believe.

I’m Sorry For Everything.” Then He Turns And Pushes Back Into The Woods, And He’s Gone.

And Then, Just At That Moment, When I'm No Longer Sure If I'm Dreaming Or Awake Or Walking Some Valley In Between Where Everything You Wish For Comes True, I Feel The Flutter Of His Lips On Mine.

The Worst Is Knowing I Can't Tell Anybody What's Happening -or What's Happened- To Me. Not Even My Mom.

I Used To Think That's What Love Was: Knowing Someone So Well He Was Like A Part Of You.

Something Must Die So That Others Can Live.

Unhappiness Is Bondage; Therefore, Happiness Is Freedom. The Way To Find Happiness Is Through The Cure. Therefore, It Is Only Through The Cure That One Finds Freedom.

Finding Happiness

Sometimes I Feel As Though There Are Two Me's, One Coasting Directly On Top Of The Other: The Superficial Me, Who Nods When She's Supposed To Nod And Says What She's Supposed To Say, And Some Other, Deeper Part, The Part That Worries And Dreams... Most Of The Time They Move Along In Sync And I Hardly Notice The Split, But Sometimes It Feels As Though I'm Two Whole Different People And I Could Rip Apart At Any Second.

His Secret Name, Which Belongs To Me, And To Him, And To No One Else.

Summer Explodes Into Portland. In Early June The Heat Was There But Not The Color--the Green Were Still Pale And Tentative, The Morning Had A Biting Coolness--but By The Last Week Of School Everything Is Technicolor And Splash, Outrageous Blue Skies And Purple Thunderstorms And Ink-black Night Skies And Red Flowers As Brights As Spots Of Blood.

We're On The Other Side Of The Fence Now, Lena,' She Says, Tiredly, As She Passes. "don't You Get It? You Can't Tell Me What To Feel.

Chance. Stupid, Dumb, Blind Chance. Just A Part Of The Strange Mechanism Of The World, With Its Fits And Coughs And Starts And Random Collisions.

Maybe He Sees It On My Face, That Fraction Of A Second When I Let My Guard Down, Because In That Moment His Expression Softens And His Eyes Go Bright As Flame And Even Though I Barely See Him Move, Suddenly He Has Closed The Space Between Us And He’s Wrapping His Warm Hands Over My Shoulders—fingers So Warm And Strong I Almost Cry Out—and Saying, “lena. I Like You, Okay? That’s It. That’s All. I Like You.” His Voice Is So Low And Hypnotic It Reminds Me Of A Song. I Think Of Predators Dropping Silently From Trees: I Think Of Enormous Cats With Glowing Amber Eyes, Just Like His.

Live Free Or Die. Four Words. Thirteen Letters. Ridges, Bumps, Swirls Under My Fingertips. Another Story. We Cling Tightly To It, And Our Belief Turns It To Truth.

There's A Place For Everything And Everyone, You Know. That Is The Mistake They Make Above. They Think That Only Certain People Have A Place. Only Certain Kinds Of People Belong. The Rest Is Waste. But Even Waste Must Have A Place. Otherwise It Will Clog And Clot, And Rot And Fester.

Feelings Aren't Forever. Time Waits For No One, But Progress Waits For Man To Enact It.

It's Too Late. I've Seen Things...i've Lost Things You Can't Understand.

If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing.

...the Past: It Drifts, It Gathers. If You Are Not Careful, It Will Bury You. This Is Half The Reason For The Cure: It Clean-sweeps; It Makes The Past, And All Its Pain, Distant, Like The Barest Impression On Sparkling Glass.

Maybe Before You Die, It's Your Ghosts You See.

We Should Be Protected From The People Who Will Leave Us In The End, From All The People Who Will Disappear Or Forget Us.

I Know The Rules. I've Been Living Here Longer Than You Have." He Cracks A Smile Then. He Nudges Me Back. "hardly." "born And Raised. You're A Transplant." I Nudge Him Again, A Little Harder, And He Laughs And Tries To Catch Hold Of My Arm. I Squirm Away, Giggling, And He Stretches Out To Tickle My Stomach. "country Bumpkin!" I Squeal, As He Grabs Out And Wrestles Me Back Onto The Blanket, Laughing. "city Slicker," He Says, Rolling Over On Top Of Me, And Then Kisses Me. Everything Dissolves: Heat, Explosions Of Color, Floating.

I Think Of Grace And Feel A Sharp Pain In My Chest.

I Still Wanted To Know Why. As Though Somebody Was Going To Answer That For Me, As Though Any Answer Would Be Satisfying.

Let Me Tell You Something About Dying: It's Not As Bad As They Says. It's The Coming-back-to-life Part That Hurts.

The Idea—the Fact Of It, The Fact That He Even Noticed And Thought About Me For More Than One Second—is Huge And Overwhelming, Makes My Legs Go Tingly And My Hands Feel Numb.

I Screamed Until My Voice Dried Up In My Throat. We All Did. All Of Us In Ward Six, All Of Us Forgotten, Left To Rot.

An Eye For An Eye." "and The Whole World Goes Blind," Coral Puts In Quietly.

Direction, Like Time, Is A General Thing, The Deprived Of Boundaries And Borders. It Is An Endless Process Interception And Reinterception, Doubling Back And Adjusting.

I Remember Lena's Expression When He Knocked On The Door; And How Alex Had Looked At Her When She Finally Let Him Into The Storeroom. I Remember Exactly What He Was Wearing, Too, And The Mess Of His Hair, The Sneakers With Their Blue-tinged Laces. His Right Shoe Was Untied. He Didn't Notice. He Didn't Notice Anything But Lena.

I Start To Back Away Before I Do Something Wildly Inappropriate, Like Jump On Top Of Him.

It's Connecticut: Being Like The People Around You Is The Whole Point.

We Wanted The Freedom To Love. We Wanted The Freedom To Choose. Now We Have To Fight For It.

Fighting For Love

With The Cure, Relationships Are All The Same, And Rules And Expectations Are Defined. Without The Cure, Relationships Must Be Reinvented Every Day, Languages Constantly Decoded And Deciphered. Freedom Is Exhausting.

The Priests And The Scientists Are Right About One Thing: At Our Heart, At Our Base, We Are No Better Than Animals.

Sometimes I Think Maybe They Were Right All Along, The People On The Other Side In Zombieland. Maybe It Would Be Better If We Didn't Love. If We Didn't Lose Either. If We Didn't Get Our Hearts Stomped On, Shattered: If We Didn't Have To Patch And Repatch Until We're Like Frankenstein Monsters, All Sewn Together And Bound Up By Who Knows What. If We Could Just Float Along, Like Snow. But How Could Anyone Who's Ever Seen A Summer - Big Explosions Of Green And Skies Lit Up Electric With Splashy Sunsets, A Riot Of Flowers And Wind That Smells Like Honey - Pick The Snow?

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