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I Close My Eyes. An Image Flashes—emerging From The Van With Julian After Our Escape From New York City; Believing, In That Moment, That We Had Escaped The Worst, That Life Would Begin Again For Us. Instead Life Has Only Grown Harder.

-Lauren Oliver

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I Close My Eyes.

Lauren Oliver

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I Close My Eyes. An Image Flashes—emerging From The Van With Julian After Our Escape From New York City; Believing, In That Moment, That We Had Escaped The Worst, That Life Would Begin Again For Us. Instead Life Has Only Grown Harder.

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The Mark Of The Procedure. A Real One. Lu Is Cured.

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

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

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.

This Is The Past: It Drifts, It Gathers. If You Are Not Careful, It Will Bury You.

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.

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge.

An Itchy Feeling Began To Work Its Way Through My Body, As Though A Thousand Mosquitoes Were Circulating Through My Blood, Biting Me From The Inside, Making Me Want To Scream, Jump, Squirm. I Ran.

I Keep Having The Urge To Cross My Hands Over My Chest, To Cover Up My Breasts, To Hide. I'm Suddenly Aware Of How Pale I Look In The Sunshine, And How Many Moles I Have Spotting Up And Down My Chest, And I Just Know He's Looking At Me Thinking I'm Wrong Or Deformed. But The He Breathes, 'beautiful' And When His Eyes Meet Mine I Know That He Really, Truly Means It.

Holy Mother Of Lord Cocoa Puffs

Someday She Will Be Saved, And The Past And All Its Pain Will Be Rendered As Smoothly Palatable As The Food We Spoon To Our Babies.

I Remember A Story I Once Heard About Drowning: That When You Fall Into Cold Water It's Not That You Drown Right Away But That The Cold Disorients You And Makes You Think That Down Is Up And Up Is Down, So You May Be Swimming, Swimming, Swimming For Your Life In The Wrong Direction, All The Way Toward The Bottom Until You Sink. That's How I Feel, As Though Everything Has Been Turned Around.

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

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.

Love Is A Kind Of Possession. It’s A Poison.

That’s Just The Kind Of Thing That Kids Do To Each Other. It’s No Big Deal. There’s Always Going To Be A Person Laughing And Somebody Getting Laughed At. It Happens Every Day, In Every School, In Every Town In America—probably In The World, For All I Know. The Whole Point Of Growing Up Is Learning To Stay On The Laughing Side.

This Is One Of My Favorite Things About The Underground: The Crashing Of The Cymbals, The Screeching Guitar Riffs, Music That Moves Into The Blood And Makes You Feel Hot And Wild And Alive.

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.

I Vowed After That Day That I Would Be Your Hero Too, No Matter How Long It Took

There Are Some Losses We Never Get Over.

Rainstorms Are Incredible: Falling Shards Of Glass, The Air Full Of Diamonds.

For A Second We Just Stand There In Silence. Then, Suddenly, Alex Is Back, Easy And Smiling Again. “i Left A Note For You One Time. In The Governor’s Fist, You Know?” I Left A Note For You One Time. It’s Impossible, Too Crazy To Think About, And I Hear Myself Repeating, “you Left A Note For Me?” “i’m Pretty Sure It Said Something Stupid. Just Hi, And A Smiley Face, And My Name. But Then You Stopped Coming.” He Shrugs. “it’s Probably Still There. The Note, I Mean. Probably Just A Bit Of Paper Pulp By Now.

It's Not My Fault I Can't Be Like You, Okay? I Don't Get Up In The Morning Thinking The World Is One Big, Shiny, Happy Place, Okay? That's Just Not How I Work. I Don't Think I Can Be Fixed.

It Was A Bird. A Bird Struggling Through Stickiness: A Bird Coated In Paint, Floundering In Its Nest, Splashing Color Everywhere. Red. Red. Red. Dozens Of Them: Black Feathers Coated Thickly With Crimson-colored Paint, Fluttering Among The Branches. Red Means Run.

I Feel Like A Curtain Has Dropped Away And I'm Seeing People For Who They Really Are, Different, And Sharp, And Unknowable.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

People Are Like Ants: Just A Few Of Them Give All The Orders. And Most Of Them Spend Their Lives Getting Squashed.

That's What It Was Like Waking Up In The Crypts. No-longer-dead. But Without Her. Like Burning Alive.

Things That Don't Matter When You've Lived The Same Day Six Times And Died On At Least Two Of Them: Lunch Meats And Their Relative Coolness.

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

There Is So Much Fragility In Kissing, In Other People: It Is All Glass.

I Wonder Whether She Was Sorry For Leaving Us Behind.

No Guy In His Right Mind Would Ever Choose Me When There Are People Like Hana In The World: It Would Be Like Settling For A Stale Cookie When What You Really Want Is A Big Bowl Of Ice Cream, Whipped Cream And Cherries And Chocolate Sprinkles Included.

...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.

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

Here's Something Else You Might As Well Learn Now: If You Want Something, If You Take It For Your Own, You'll Always Be Taking It From Someone Else. That's A Rule Too. And Something Must Die So That Others Can Live.

I’m Sorry,” He Repeats Again, Too Low For Raven And Tack To Hear. “i’m Sorry For Everything.

I’m With Julian,” I Say At Last. This, After All, Is What I Have Chosen.

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

In One Of The Tents, Julian Is Sleeping. And In Another: Alex

Because If It Weren’t For Me, Lena And Alex Would Never Have Been Caught At All. I Told On Them. I Was Jealous.

Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

Mice? Fine. Flying Mice? Not So Fine.

It's The Rule Of The Wilds. You Must Be Bigger, And Stronger, And Tougher. A Coldness Radiates Through Me, A Solid Wall That Is Growing, Piece By Piece, In My Chest. He Doesn't Love Me. He Never Loved Me. It Was All A Lie. "the Old Lena Is Dead." I Say, And Then Push Past Him. Each Step Is More Difficult Than The Last; The Heaviness Fills Me And Turns My Limbs To Stone. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

Amor Deliria Nervosa Isn't A Disease Of Love. It's A Disease Of Selfishness.

Something Aches At The Very Core Of Me, Something Ancient And Deep And Stronger Than Words: The Filament That Joins Each Of Us To The Root Of Existence, That Ancient Thing Unfurling And Resisting And Grappling, Desperately, For A Foothold, A Way To Stay Here, Breathe, Keep Going.

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.

And When I Wake Up It's Wonderful, Like I've Been Carried Quietly Onto A Calm, Peaceful Shore, And The Dream, And Its Meaning, Has Broken Over Me Like A Wave And Is Ebbing Away Now, Leaving Me With A Single, Solid Certainty. I Know Now.

Some Things Are Better Left Buried And Forgotten.

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

I'm Gone, Lost, Floating Away Into Nothingness Like I Am In My Dream, But This Time It's A Good Feeling - Like Soaring, Like Being Totally Free, And I Can Feel The Impression Of His Fingers Everywhere That They Touch, And I Think Of Stars Streaking Through The Sky And Leaving Burning Trails Behind Them, And In That Moment - However Long It Lasts, Seconds, Minutes, Days - While He's Saying My Name Into My Mouth And I'm Breathing Into Him, I Realize This, Right Here, Is The First And Only Time I've Ever Been Kissed In My Life.

No One Had Ever Told Her This Basic Fact: Not Everyone Got To Be Loved.

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

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.

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.

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.

Most Of Us Won't See One Another After Graduation, And Even If We Do It Will Be Different. We'll Be Different. We'll Be Adults--cured, Tagged And Labeled And Paired And Identified And Placed Neatly On Our Life Path, Perfectly Round Marbles Set To Roll Down Even, Well-defined Slopes.

I Want To Know." His Words Are A Whisper, Barely Audible. "i Want To Know With You.

I'd Rather Die My Way Than Live Yours.

Is It Possible To Tell The Truth In A Society Of Lies? Or Must You Always, Of Necessity, Become A Liar?

Telling The Truth

He's Stuck With Me And I'm Stuck With Him. We're Stuck. That's What Growing Up Is All About, I Guess.

I'm Not Scared, If That's What You're Wondering. The Moment Of Death Is Full Of Sound And Warmth And Light Shooting Away, Arcing Up And Up And Up, And If Singing Were A Feeling It Would Be This, This Light, This Lifting, Like Laughing... The Rest You Have To Find Out For Yourself.

Of All The Systems Of The Body - Neurological, Cognitive, Special, Sensory - The Cardiological System Is The Most Sensitive And Easily Disturbed. The Role Of Society Must Be To Shelter These Systems From Infection And Decay, Or Else The Future Of The Human Race Is At Stake. Like A Summer Fruit That Is Protected From Insect Invasion, Bruising, And Rot By The Whole Mechanism Of Modern Farming; So Must We Protect The Heart.

That's What Time Does: We Stand Stubbornly Like Rocks While It Flows All Around Us, Believing That We Are Immutable - And All The Time We're Being Carved, And Shaped, And Whittled Away.

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

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

Each Step Is More Difficult Than The Last; The Heaviness Fills Me And Turns My Limbs To Stone. You Must Hurt Or Be Hurt.

But Maybe Happiness Isn't In The Choosing. Maybe It's In The Fiction, In The Pretending: That Wherever We Have Ended Up Is Where We Intended To Be All Along.

Raven Has Lost Deeply, Again And Again, And She, Too, Has Buried Herself. There Are Pieces Of Her Scattered All Over. Her Heart Is Nestled Next To A Small Set Of Bones Buried Beside A Frozen River, Which Will Emerge With The Spring Thaw, A Skeleton Ship Rising Out Of The Water”.

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 Loved To Be Alone In The Woods, Especially In The Late Fall When Everything Is Crisp And Golden, The Leaves The Color Of Fire, And It Smells Like Things Turning Into Earth. I Loved The Silence - The Only Sound The Steady Drum Of The Hooves And The Horse's Breathing.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried.

This Was What True Fear Was--that You Could Never Know Other People, Not Completely. That You Were Always Just Guessing Blind.

That’s What Made It So Frightening To The Lawmakers: Love Obeys No Laws Other Than Its Own.

It's Like A Razor Blade Edging Its Way Through My Organs, Shredding Me, All I Can Think Is: It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me, It Will Kill Me. And I Don't Care.

Funny How Certain Things Stay With You.

Don't Worry About What You're Writing Or Whether It's Good Or Even Whether It Makes Sense.

I'm Mesmerized By The Way His Fingers Move Confidently Along Her Skin, As Though Her Body Is His To Reat And Touch And Tend To. She Was Mine Before She Was Yours: The Words Are There, Unexpectedly, Surging From My Throat To My Tongue. I Swallow Them Back.

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.

Love: A Single Word, A Wispy Thing, A Word No Bigger Or Longer Than An Edge. That's What It Is: An Edge; A Razor. It Draws Up Through The Center Of Your Life, Cutting Everything In Two. Before And After. The Rest Of The World Falls Away On Either Side.

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

Eventually She Came. She Appeared Suddenly, Exactly Like She'd Done That Day- She Stepped Into The Sunshine, She Jumped, She Laughed And Threw Her Head Back, So Her Long Ponytail Nearly Grazed The Waistband Of Her Jeans. After That, I Couldn't Think About Anything Else. The Mole On The Inside Of Her Right Elbow, Like A Dark Blot Of Ink. The Way She Ripped Her Nails To Shreds When She Was Nervous. Her Eyes, Deep As A Promise. Her Stomach, Pale And Soft And Gorgeous, And The Tiny Dark Cavity Of Her Belly Button. I Nearly Went Crazy.

Sometimes I Feel Like She Deserves A Best Friend Who Is Just A Little More Special.

It's The Time Of The Night I Like Best, When Most People Are Asleep And It Feels Like The World Belongs Completely To My Friends And Me, As Though Nothing Exists Apart From Out Little Circle: Everywhere Else Is Darkness And Quiet.

Live Free Or Die.

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.

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.

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

Thinking Of Her

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

It Was All Very Strange, Mr. Gray Thought, As He Wiped The Coffee Canister Clean With A Sponge. Very, Very Mysterious. You Were Born; You Lived A Whole Life; And At The End, You Wound Up In A Coffee Canister. "ah, Well," He Said Out Loud Quietly. "that's Just The Way Things Are. Life's A Funny Business." Death, He Supposed, Was The Punch Line.

I Didn't Realize Then What A Privilege That Was: To Be Bored With Your Best Friend; To Have Time To Waste.

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.

The Past Is Nothing But A Weight. It Will Build Inside Of You Like A Stone.

That Is What Hatred Is. It Will Feed You And At The Same Time Turn You To Rot. It Is Hard And Deep And Angular, A System Of Blockades. It Is Everything And Total. Hatred Is A High Tower. In The Wilds, I Start To Build, And To Climb.

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 There Is So Much I Never Knew About Him--his Past, His Role In The Resistance, What His Life Was Like In The Wilds, Before He Came To Portland, And I Feel A Flash Of Grief So Intense It Almost Makes Me Cry Out: Not For What I Lost, But For The Chances I Missed.

Maybe, The Hope Said. Maybe.

Po Swirled Upward From Where It Had Been Sitting, And Floated Over To The Window. "when You Go Swimming And You Put Your Head Under The Water," Po Said, "and Everything Is Strange And Underwater-sounding, And Strange And Underwater-looking, You Don't Miss The Air Do You? You Don't Miss The Above-water Sounds And The Above-water Look. It's Just Different." "true." Liesl Was Quiet For A Moment. Then She Added, "but I Bet You'd Miss It If You Were Drowning. I Bet You'd Really Miss The Air Then."

You Came Form Different Starts And You'll Come To Different Ends.

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.

Droplets, Droplets: We Are All Identical Drips And Drops Of People, Hovering, Waiting To Be Tipped, Waiting For Someone To Show Us The Way, To Pour Us Down A Path. ... He Has Tipped Us Over, All Of Us In Our Teetering Expectancy, And Now We Are Pouring Toward Him, Coursing On A Wave Of Sound, Of Roaring Shouts And Applause. ... They Are The Moon; We Are A Tide, Their Tide, And Under Their Direction We Will Wipe Clean All The Sickness And Blight From The World.

Amazingly, I'd Actually Forgotten That I'm Supposed To Be Plain. I'm So Used To Alex Telling Me I'm Beautiful. I'm So Used To Feeling Beautiful Around Him. A Hollow Opens Up In My Chest. This Is What Life Will Be Like Without Him: Everything Will Become Ordinary Again. I'll Become Ordinary Again.

"kent?" I Say, And My Voice Seems To Have To Rise From Inside The Fog, Taking Forever To Get From My Brain To My Mouth. "yeah?" "promise You'll Stay Here With Me?" I Say. "i Promise," He Whispers.

When I’m Running, There’s Always This Split Second When The Pain Is Ripping Through Me And I Can Hardly Breathe And All I See Is Color And Blur—and In That Split Second, Right As The Pain Crests, And Becomes Too Much, And There’s A Whiteness Going Through Me, I See Something To My Left, A Flicker Of Color […]—and I Know Then, Too, That If I Only Turn My Head He’ll Be There, Laughing, Watching Me, And Holding Out His Arms. I Don’t Ever Turn My Head To Look, Of Course. But One Day I Will. One Day I Will, And He’ll Be Back, And Everything Will Be Okay. And Until Then: I Run.

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.

If You’re Smart, You Care. And If You Care, You Love.

And When It Started To Get Dark You Pointed To The Sky, And Told Me There Was A Star For Every Thing You Loved About Me.

Droplets, Droplets: We Are All Identical Drips And Drops Of People, Hovering, Waiting To Be Tipped, Waiting For Someone To Show Us The Way, To Pour Us Down A Path.

Perfection Is A Promise, And A Reassurance That We Are Not Wrong.

As We're Standing There I Realize We're Almost Exactly The Same Height. We Must Look Like The Dark And Light Side Of An Oreo Cookie, And I Think How Just As Easily It Could Have Been The Other Way Around. She Could Be Blocking My Path; I Could Be Trying To Slip Around Her Into The Dark.

Like I Am Alice In The Wonderland And Have Gotten Too Big For The Room.

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

This Was What Being Cured Was Like: Like Being In A Fishbowl, Circling Always Inside The Same Glass.

The Secret Is,” I Say, Whispering Right Into His Ear, “that Yours Was The Best Kiss I’ve Ever Had In My Life.” “but I’ve Never Kissed You,” He Whispers Back. Around Us The Rain Sounds Like Falling Glass. “not Since Third Grade, Anyway.” I Smile, But I’m Not Sure If He Can See It. “better Get Started, Then,” I Say, “because I Don’t Have Much Time.

That's The Way I Feel, At Least: Like There's A Real Me And A Reflection Of Me, And I Have No Way Of Telling Which Is Which.

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.

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.

It's Surprisingly Nice Out Here, Peaceful And Pretty-strange To Be Standing In The Middle Of A Little Garden While Enclosed By The Massive Stone Walls Of The Prison, Like Being At The Exact Center Of A Hurricane, And Finding Peace And Silence In The Middle Of So Much Shrieking Damage.

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

I Feel An Overwhelming Rush Of Sadness... I'm Just Struck With A Sense Of Time Passing So Quickly, Rushing Forward. One Day I'll Wake Up And My Whole Life Will Be Behind Me, And It Will Seem To Have Gone As Quickly As A Dream.

I’ve Always Hated Being Looked At.

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

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.

Everything In Me Feels Fluttering And Free, Like I Could Take Off From The Ground At Any Second. Music, I Think, He Makes Me Feel Like Music.

It Won't Matter If Nobody Ever Thinks I'm Pretty (although Sometimes I Wish, Just For A Second, That Somebody Would)

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

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

What I Meant Was, You Looked Happier In The Pictures.

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.

The Alchemist Was Dazed And Dumbfounded, As The True Meaning Of The Magic Was Revealed: *the Dead Will Rise From Glade To Glen And Ancient Will Be Young Again*. The Dead Had, After All, Risen. From Dead And Dry Things There Was Growth, And New Life Everywhere. And The Endlessly Long Winter Had At Last Turned To Spring. From Life To Death And Back Again To Life. It Was Indeed The Greatest Magic In The World.

But Maybe You Carried Your Demons With You Everywhere, The Way You Carried Your Shadow.

It's Amazing How Close I Have Been, All This Time, To My Old Life. And Yet The Distance That Divides Me From It Is Vast.

Nobody Ever Said Life Was Fair.

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.

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.

He Is My World And My World Is Him And Without Him There Is No World.

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.

It's Like High School Holds Two Different Worlds, Revolving Around Each Other An Never Touching; The Haves And The Have-nots. I Guess It's A Good Thing. High School Is Supposed To Prepare You For The Real World, After All.

I Will Make A Pact With You: I Will Do It If You Will Do It, Always And Forever. Take Down The Walls.

His Eyes Are The Color Of Honey. These Are The Eyes I Remember From My Dreams.

They’d Already Taken Her From Me Once. I Didn’t Want To Lose Her Again.

It Was Unfair That People Could Pretend To Be One Thing When They Were Really Something Else. That They Would Get You On Their Side And Then Do Nothing But Fail, And Fail, And Fail Again. People Should Come With Warnings, Like Cigarette Packs: Involvement Would Kill You Over Time.

My First Kiss. A New Kind Of Kiss, Like The New Kind Of Music Still Playing, Softly, In The Distance - Wild And Arrhythmic, Desperate. Passionate.

Even The Greatest Movements On Earth, Have Their Beginnings With Something Small.

This Is What We Are Made For: Promises, Pledges, And Sworn Oaths Of Obedience.

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

I Wonder If It's Ever Really Possible To Know The Truth About Someone Else, Or If The Best We Can Do Is Just Stumble Into Each Other, Heads Down, Hoping To Avoid Collision. I...wonder How Many People Are Clutching Secrets Like Little Fists, Little Rocks Sitting In The Pits Of Their Stomachs. All Of Them, Maybe.

Take It From Me: If You Hear The Past Speaking To You, Feel It Tugging Up Your Back And Runing Its Fingers Up Your Spine, The Best Thing To Do-the Only Thing-is Run.

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

I'll Find You," He Says, Watching Me With The Eyes I Remember. "i Won't Let You Go Again

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

If Cassie Was Invalidated Because She Caught The Disease, Or Because Fred Suspected Her Of It, I Can Only Imagine What He Will Do To Me And To My Family If He Discovers That The Cure Did Not Work Perfectly.

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.

But Now I Give In, Let The Anger Surge. I'm Sick Of People Acting Like This World, This Other World Is The Normal One, While I'm The Freak. It's Not Fair; Like All The Rules Have Suddenly Changed And Somebody Forgot To Tell Me.

...and Once At Hana's House, When We Stole Some Blackberry Liqueur From Her Parents' Liquor Cabinet And Drank Until The Ceiling Started Spinning Overhead. Hana Was Laughing And Giggling, But I Didn't Like It, Didn't Like The Sweet Sick Taste In My Mouth Or The Way My Thoughts Seemed To Break Apart Like A Mist In The Sun.

I Feel A Flash Of Grief So Intense It Almost Makes Me Cry Out: Not For What I Lost, But For The Chances I Missed.

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.

That’s A Funny Thing: You Think, When Awful Things Happen, Everything Else Just Stops, Like You Would Forget To Pee And Eat And Get Thirsty, But It’s Not Really True. It’s Like You And Your Body Are Two Separate Things, Like Your Body Is Betraying You, Chugging On, Idiotic And Animal, Craving Water And Sandwiches And Bathroom Breaks While Your World Falls Apart.

At A Certain Point Your Brain Stops To Rationalize Things. At A Certain Point It Gives Up, Shuts Off, Shuts Down.

The Hours Here Are Flat And Round, Disks Of Gray Layered One On Top Of The Other...they Move Slowly, At A Grind, Until It Seems As Though They Are Not Moving At All. They Are Just Pressing Down.

Time And Space Recede And Blast Away Like A Universe Expanding Forever Outward, And Leaving Only Darkness And The Two Of Us On Its Periphery, Darkness And Breathing And Touch.

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

Dystopian Novels Help People Process Their Fears About What The Future Might Look Like; Further, They Usually Show That There Is Always Hope, Even In The Bleakest Future.

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

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 . . .

And I Have Julian. I Found Him, And He Followed Me. I Reach Out In The Half Dark, Wordlessly, And Find His Hands. We Interlace Our Fingers, And Though He Doesn't Say Anything Either, I Can Feel The Warmth And Energy Passing Between Us, A Soundless Dialogue. Thank You, He Is Saying, And I Am Saying, I Am So Happy, I Am So Happy, I Needed You To Be Safe.

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

It's Funny, Isn't It? When You Are Young You Just Want To Be Old, And Then Later You Wish You Could Go Back To Being A Kid.

I Guess There Are Some Things You Never Get Used To.

The Most Dangerous Sicknesses Are Those That Make Us Believe We Are Well

There Is No Before. There Is Only Now, And What Comes Next.

I Need To Live My Life In The Light Of Their Deaths. I Need To Live.

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

Huamns, Uregulated, Are Cruel And Capricious; Violet And Selfish; Miserable And Quarrelsome. It Is Only After Their Instincts And Basic Emotions Have Been Controlled That They Can Be Happy, Generous, And Good.

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

The Only Thing Worse Than Having No Friends Is Being Pitied For Having No Friends.

I Suppose That's The Secret, If You're Ever Wishing For Things To Back The Way They Were. You Just Have To Look Up.

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

It's As Though The Words Are Trapped, Buried Under Past Fears, Past Lives, Like Fossils Compressed Under Layers Of Dirt.

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

I'd Rather Die On My Own Terms Than Live On Theirs. I'd Rather Die Loving Alex Than Live Without Him.

You Don't Reach Points In Life At Which Everything Is Sorted Out For Us. I Believe In Endings That Should Suggest Our Stories Always Continue.

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

Amor Deliria Nervosa: It Affects Your Mind So That You Cannot Think Clearly, Or Make Rational Decisions About Your Own Well-being. Symptom Number Twelve.

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.

Every Choice Is Limited. That's Life.

That's When I Realized That Certain Moments Go On Forever. Even After They're Over They Still Go On, Even After You're Dead And Buried, Those Moments Are Lasting Still, Backward And Forward, On Into Infinity. They Are Everything And Everywhere All At Once. They Are The Meaning.

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.

My Heart Is Fluid And Soaring. There's No Longer Any Space Between Heartbeats.

It's Like There's A Filter Set Up In My Brain, Except Instead Of Making Things Better, It Twists Everything Around So What Comes Out Of My Mouth Is Totally Wrong, Totally Different From What I Was Thinking.

I Didn’t Know It Would Be Like This,” He Says In A Whisper. And Then: “i’m Scared.

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

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.

The Devil Stole Into The Garden Of Eden. He Carried With Him The Disease - Amor Deliria Nervosa - In The Form Of A Seed. It Grew And Flowered Into A Magnificent Apple Tree, Which Bore Apples As Bright As Blood. -from Genesis: A Complete History Of The World And The Known Universe, By Steven Horace, Phd, Harvard University

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

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