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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.

-Lauren Oliver

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I Remember A Story

Lauren Oliver

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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.

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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.

Everyone Just Wasting Time Because They Have So Much Of It To Waste, Minutes Slipping By On Who's With Who And Did You Hear.

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.

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

I Start To Follow Her, And Alex Grabs My Hand. "i'll Find You," He Says, Watching Me With The Eyes I Remember. "i Won't Let You Go Again." I Don't Trust Myself To Speak. Instead I Nod, Hoping That He Understands Me. He Squeezes My Hand. "go," He Says.

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

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.

Hope Keeps You Alive.

...into Hate, Into Refusal, Against Hope And Without Fear

For The First Time In My Life I've Done Something For Me And By Choice And Not Because Somebody Told Me It Was Good Or Bad.

As Soon As I Look Up, His Eyes Click Onto My Face. The Breath Whooshes Out Of My Body And Everything Freezes For A Second, As Though I’m Looking At Him Through My Camera Lens, Zoomed In All The Way, The World Pausing For That Tiny Span Of Time Between The Opening And Closing Of The Shutter.

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

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.

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.

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.

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Some Things Are Better Left Buried And Forgotten.

Holy Mother Of Lord Cocoa Puffs

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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.

Hate Isn’t The Most Dangerous Thing, He’d Said. Indifference Is.

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.

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.

Of All The Miracles Po Had Seen In The Time And Space Of Its Death, Po Thought This--the Absorption Of Another, The Carrying Of It--was The Most Bewildering And Remarkable Of All. Whenever Bundle Separated Again, Po Was Left With An Ache Of Sadness That Reminded The Ghost Of The Body It Had Left Behind.

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

They've Lied About Everything.-about The Fence, And The Existence Of Invalids, About A Million Other Things Besides. They Told Us The Raids Were Carried Out For Our Own Protection. They Told Us The Regulators Were Only Interested In Keeping The Peace. 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, Maight Also Be A Lie.

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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The House, The Pond, The Tree-it Was All Both Overwhelmingly Familiar And Different From What She Remembered-smaller And Shabbier, Somehow. It Was Like Waking Up To Find That Your Reflection In The Mirror Had Aged Overnight, Or Had Sprouted A New Mole: You Were Forced To Admit That Things Changed, Whether You Gave Them Permission To Or Not.

Anger Is Useful Only To A Certain Point. After That, It Becomes Rage, And Rage Will Make You Careless.

The Old Lena Is Dead.

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

Somewhere In The Endless Spinning Of Eternity That One, Tiny, Fraction Of A Second Where Our Lips Met Is Lost Forever.

That's My Favorite Thing About Him. I Like To Lie Next To Him When It's Late, Dark, And So Quiet I Can Hear My Own Heartbeat. It's Times Like That When I'm Sure That I'm In Love.

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

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Fred Is Officially The Mayor Of Portland Now.

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

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.

For The First Time In My Life I Actually Feel Sorry For Carol. I'm Only Seventeen Years Old, And I Already Know Something She Doesn't Know: I Know That Life Isn't Life If You Just Float Through It. I Know That The Whole Point- The Only Point- Is To Find Things That Matter, And Hold On To Them, And Fight For Them, And Refuse To Let Them Go.

I Think Of All The Thousands Of Billions Of Steps And Missteps And Chances And Coincidences That Have Brought Me Here. Brought You Here, And It Feels Like The Biggest Miracle In The World.

And There It Is: Even Though We’re Standing In The Same Patch Of Sun-drenched Pavement, We Might As Well Be A Hundred Thousand Miles Apart.

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

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

I’m Not The Hana Everyone Told Me I Would Be After My Cure.

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

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

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I Get That Rush That Comes When You Know You're Doing Something Wrong And Are Getting Away With It, Like Stealing From The School Cafeteria Of Getting Tipsy At A Family Holiday Without Anyone Knowing It.

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

Funny How Certain Things Stay With You.

It's The Way He Says My Name: Like Music.

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.

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.

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

It's So Strange How Life Works: You Want Something And You Wait And Wait And Feel Like It's Taking Forever To Come. Then It Happens And It's Over And All You Want To Do Is Curl Back Up In That Moment Before Things Changed.

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.

Finishing Books - And Leaving The World You've Created - Is Always A Kind Of Emotionally Wrenching Experience. I Usually Cry.

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

That Is What Alex Is Now: A Shadow-boy

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

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.

Mama, Mama, Help Me Get Home I'm Out In The Woods, I Am Out On My Own. I Found Me A Werewolf, A Nasty Old Mutt It Showed Me Its Teeth And Went Straight For My Gut. Mama, Mama, Help Me Get Home I'm Out In The Woods, I Am Out On My Own. I Was Stopped By A Vampire, A Rotting Old Wreck It Showed Me Its Teeth And Went Straight For My Neck. Mama, Mama, Put Me To Bed I Won't Make It Home, I'm Already Half-dead. I Met An Invalid, And Fell For His Art He Showed Me His Smile, And Went Straight For My Heart. -from "a Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes And Folk Tales

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

That's The Thing About Faith. It Works.

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.

And A Face Above Mine, White And Beautiful, Eyes As Large As The Moon. You Saved Me. A Hand On My Cheek, Cool And Dry. Why Did You Save Me? Words Welling Up On A Tide: No, The Opposite. Eyes The Colour Of A Dawn Sky, A Crown Of Blond Hair, So Bright And White And Blinding I Could Swear It Was A Halo.

You Have To Go Forward: It's The Only Way. You Have To Go Forward No Matter What Happens. This Is The Universal Law.

For A Moment, My Heart Aches For Him. I Should Never Have Asked Him To Join Me Here; I Should Never Have Asked Him To Cross.

It Is War Now, And Armies Need Symbols.

I Wonder Whether She Was Sorry For Leaving Us Behind.

I’ve Been Trying So Hard Not To Think His Name, Not To Even Breathe The Idea Of Him

What Does It Feel Like To Be Infected?" "i-- I Can't Describe It." I Force The Words Out. Can't Breathe, Can't Breathe, Can't Breathe. His Skin Smells Like Smoke From A Wood Fire, Like Soap, Like Heaven. I Imagine Tasting His Skin; I Imagine Biting His Lips. "i Want To Know." His Words Are A Whisper, Barely Audible. "i Want To Know With You.

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.

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

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

My Former People Were Not Totally Wrong. Love Is A Kind Of Possession. It’s A Poison. And If Alex No Longer Loves Me, I Can’t Bear To Think That He Might Love Somebody Else.

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

Fighting For Love

I Love You. Remember. And Someday, I Will Find You Again.

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.

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..." ♥

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It's A Miracle I Was Able To Get Out Of The House Today. It's A Miracle I'm Even Wearing Pants, A Double Miracle I Remembered To Wear Shoes.

But From The Beginning, I Knew That In A World Where Destiny Was Dead, I Was Destined, Forever, To Love Him. Even Though He Didn't - Though He Couldn't - Ever Love Me Back.

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

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

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

Despite The Fact That Raven And Tack Are Often Fighting, It's Impossible To Imagine One Without The Other. They Are Like Two Plants That Have Grown Around Each Other - They Strangle And Squeeze And Support At The Same Time.

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?

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.

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

Things Change After You Die, Though, I Guess Because Dying Is The Loneliest Thing You Can Do.

Once Mo Had Closed The Gates, He Returned To His Little Stone Hut, And His Half-eaten Sandwich Of Butter And Canned Sardines, And His Mug Of Thick Hot Chocolate, Which Every Night He Poured Carefully Into A Thermos Labeled Coffee.

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.

I Want To Be Healed And Whole And Perfect Again, Like A Misshapen Slab Of Iron That Comes Out Of The Fire Glowing, Glittering, Razor-sharp.

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.

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

I Said, I Prefer The Ocean When It's Gray. Or Not Really Gray. A Pale, In-between Color. It Reminds Me Of Waiting For Something Good To Happen.

Grief Is Like Sinking, Like Being Buried.

You Can Try To Pin Me Down With A Hundred Thousand Arms, But I Will Find A Way To Resist

A Room Full Of Words That Are Nearly The Truth But Not Quite, Each Note Fluttering Off The Steam Of Its Rose Like A Broken Butterfly Wing.

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

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.

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

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.

Be Honest: Are You Surprised That I Didn't Realize Sooner? Are You Surprised That It Took Me So Long To Even /think/ The Word -- Death? Dying? Dead? Do You Think I Was Being Stupid? Naive? Try Not To Judge. Remember That We're The Same, You And Me. I Thought I Would Live Forever Too.

Love: It Will Kill You And Save You, Both

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

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

Keeping Secrets

Best Kept Secrets

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.

Live Free Or Die.

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.

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.

This Is The World We Live In, A World Of Safety And Happiness And Order, A World Without Love. A World Where Children Crack Their Heads On Stone Fireplaces And Nearly Gnaw Off Their Tongues And The Parents Are Concerned. Not Heartbroken, Frantic, Desperate. Concerned, As They Are When You Fail Mathematics, As They Are When They Are Late To Pay Their Taxes.

I Know The Past Will Drag You Backward And Down, Have You Snatching At Whispers Of Wind And The Gibberish Of Trees Rubbing Together, Trying To Decipher Some Code, Trying To Piece Together What Was Broken. It's Hopeless. The Past Is Nothing But A Weight. It Will Build Inside You Like A Stone.

The Second Time My World Exploded, It Was Also Because Of A Word. A Word That Worked Its Way Out Of My Throat And Danced Onto And Out Of My Lips Before I Could Think About It, Or Stop It. The Question Was: Will You Meet Me Tomorrow? And The Word Was: Yes.

Time Jumps. It Leaps. It Pours Away Like Water Through Fingers.

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.

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

There's Always Some Relief In Giving Up.

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

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

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