I let myself slip away... Just to stay sane. Just to get through it. And when I felt myself slipping too far, I held on to the one thing I'm always sure of - Blue eyes. Bronze curls. The fact that Simon Snow is the most powerful magician alive. That nothing can hurt him, not even me. That Simon Snow is alive. And I'm hopelessly in love with him.
You don't know when you're twenty-three.You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten - in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems.She didn't know at twenty-three.
He shakes his head, and he's saying something, and I think I might kiss him. Because I've never kissed anyone before. (I was afraid I might bite.) And I've never wanted to kiss anyone but him. (I won't bite. I won't hurt him.) I just want to kiss him, then go. "Simon...," I say. And then he kisses me.
When she opened her door, Levi was sitting in the hallway, his legs bent in front of him, hunched forward on his knees. He looked up when she stepped out.“I’m such an idiot,” he said.Cath fell between his knees and hugged him.“I can’t believe I said that,” he said. “I can’t even go nine hours without seeing you.
The professor leaned forward. “But there’s nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing.” Her lovely face turned fierce. “Think about it Cath. That’s what makes a god—or a mother. There’s nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself.
This is new to us, you know? Your mother's sorry. She's sorry that she hurt your feelings, and she wants you to invite your girlfriend over for dinner.""So that she can make her feel bad and weird?""Well she is kind of weird, isn't she?"Park didn't have the energy to be angry. He sighed and let his head fall back on the chair. His dad kept talking. "Isn't that why you like her?
You don’t have any friends, your sister dumped you, you’re a freak eater..and you’ve got some weird thing about Simon Snow.""I object to every single thing you just said."Reagan chewed. And frowned. She was wearing dark red lipstick."I have lots of friends," Cath said."I never see them.""I just got here. Most of my friends went to other schools. Or they’re online.""Internet friends don’t count.""Why not?"Reagan shrugged disdainfully."And I don’t have a weird thing with Simon Snow," Cath said. "I’m just really active in the fandom.""What the fuck is ‘the fandom’?
And there wasn’t anything he wanted to do that he couldn’t make time for. What did he have to mope about, really? What more did he want? Love, he could hear Eve saying. Purpose. Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?
She told me later that her parents had told her to steer clear of me at school. "My mum said that nobody really knew where you came from. And that you might be dangerous." "Why didn't you listen to her?" I asked. "Because nobody knew where you came from, Simon! And you might be dangerous!" "You have the worst survival instincts." "Also, I felt sorry for you," she said. "You were holding your wand backwards.
Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history.”Baz is looking at Penny like they’ve never met.“And,” Penny goes on, “she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal.”“That sounds barbaric,” I say.“It was traditional,” Baz says.“It was brilliant,” Penny says. “I’ve read the minutes.”“Where?” Baz asks her.“We have them in our library at home,” she says “My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions.
You’ve read the books?”“I’ve seen the movies.”Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.”“I’m not really a book person.”“That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me
I had this whole plan when I graduated high school: I was going to go to college, date a few guys, and then meet THE guy at the end of my freshman year, maybe at the beginning of my sophomore year. We'd be engaged by graduation and married the next year. And then, after some traveling, we'd start our family. Four kids, three years apart. I wanted to be done by the time I was 35.
God, had it really been that long? It had. Nineteen years since Georgie stumbled across Seth in the Spoon offices, seventeen years since she first noticed Neal, fourteen since she married him, standing beside a row of lilac trees in his parents' back yard. Georgie never thought she'd be old enough to talk about life in big, decade-long chunks like this. It's not that she'd thought she was going to die before now, she'd just never imagined it would feel this way, the heaviness of the proportions. Twenty years with the same dream, seventeen with the same man. Pretty soon she'd have been with Neal longer than she'd been without him. She'd know herself as his wife better than she'd ever known herself as anyone else. It felt like too much, not too much have, just too much to contemplate. Commitments like boulders that were too heavy to carry. Fourteen years since their wedding, fifteen years since Neal tried to drive away from her, fifteen since he drove back. Seventeen since she first saw him, saw something in him that she couldn't look away from.
Even fifteen hundred miles away, even on the phone, Georgie was more alive than anything else in his life. He felt his cheeks warm just thinking about seeing her again. That's what Georgie did to him, she pulled the blood to the surface of his skin. She acted on him, tidally. She made him feel like things were happening, like life was happening, and even if he was miserable sometimes, he wasn't going to sleep through it.He ran his hand over his pocket. The ring was still there. It had been there since he left the nursing home. His great aunt had pressed it into Neal's hands. 'I don't need this anymore, I never really needed it, but Harold liked to see it on my finger. It was a family ring,' she said. 'It should stay in the family.' Neal made up his mind as soon as he saw it. The future was going to happen, even if he wasn’t ready for it. Even if he was never ready for it. At least he could make sure he was with the right person. Wasn’t that the point of life? To find someone to share it with? And if you got that part right, how far wrong could you go? If you were standing next to the person you loved more than everything else, wasn’t everything else just scenery?
Things didn't go bad between Georgie and Neal. Things were always bad -- and always good. Their marriage was like a set of scales constantly balancing itself. And then, at some point, when neither of them was paying attention, they'd tipped so far over into bad, they'd settled there. Now only an enormous amount of good would shift them back. An impossible amount of good.
There was something about the music on that tape. It felt different. Like, it set her lungs and her stomach on edge. There was something exciting about it, and something nervous. It made Eleanor feel like everything, like the world, wasn't what she'd thought it was. And that was a good thing. That was the greatest thing.
They slow your brain down," he said, clutching an orange bottle of pills. "They iron out all the wrinkles...Maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too..."They break your brain like a horse, so it takes all your orders. I need a break that can break away, you know? I need to think. If I can't think, who am I?
They slow your brain down," he said, clutching an orange bottle of pills. "They iron out all the wrinkles...Maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too..."They break your brain like a horse, so it takes all your orders. I need a brain that can break away, you know? I need to think. If I can't think, who am I?
Why did you tell me it was just a kiss?" she asked, waiting for her voice to break. "I don't even care about that other girl. I mean, I do, but not as much. Why was your first instinct to tell me that what happened between you and me didn't matter? And why should I believe you now when you say that it did? Why should I believe anything you say?
He took the necklace out of the box and carefully fastened it around her neck. Just like he'd imagined himself doing when he bought it. That might even be why he bought it - so he'd have this moment, under her hair. He ran his fingertips along the chain and settled the pendant on her throat.
I didn't plan it," she said. "I hoped that we would both just know when it was time... That we'd have one of those moments. Like in the movies, foreign movies, when something small happens, something almost imperceptible, and it changes everything. Like there's a man and a woman having breakfast... and the man reaches for the jam, and the woman says, "I thought you didn't like jam," and the man says, "I didn't. Once.""Or maybe it isn’t even obvious. Maybe he reaches for the jam, and she just looks at him like she doesn't know him anymore. Like, in the moment he reached for that jar, she couldn't recognize him."After breakfast, he'll go for a walk, and she'll go to their room and pack a slim brown suitcase. She'll stop on the sidewalk and wonder whether she should say good-bye, whether she should leave a note. But she won't. She'll just get into the taxi and go."He knows as soon as he turns onto their walk that she's gone. But he doesn't turn back. He doesn't regret a single day they spent together, including this one. Maybe he finds one of her ribbons on the stairs...
I wasn’t built for this,” he yelled. “Look at me. You know it’s true.” And for the first time, maybe ever, he didn’t sound cool. He sounded a little panicked. And a little angry. “I don’t want to love someone so much that they take up all my head, all my space. If I knew I was going to feel this way about you, I would have left a long time ago, while I still could.
I just want to know—are you rooting for me? Are you hoping I pull this off?"Cath's eyes settled on his, tentatively, like they'd fly away if he moved.She nodded her head.The right side of his mouth pulled up."I'm rooting for you," she whispered. She wasn't even sure he could hear her from the bed.Levi's smile broke free and devoured his whole face.
The problem with playing hide-and-seek with your sister is that sometimes she gets bored and stops looking for you.And there you are - under the couch, in the closet, wedged behind the lilac tree - and you don't want to give up, because maybe she's just biding her time. But maybe she's wandered off...
Cath liked Levi. A lot. She liked looking at him. She liked listening to him -- though sometimes she hated listening to him talk to other people. She hated the way he passed out smiles to everyone he met like it didn't cost him anything, like he'd never run out. He made everything look so easy.
All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?'He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears. 'God,' she said. 'I told you I shouldn't talk. I didn't even answer your question.
I don't like you, Park. I think I live for you. I don't think I even breathe when we're not together. Which means when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?
Of course I can read", he said. "Jesus Christ.""Well, then, what are you trying to tell me? That you don't want to?" "No. I-" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. "-I don't know why I'm trying to tell you anything. I can read. I just can't read book.""So pretend it's a really long street sign and muddle through it.
Cath probably should have texted Abel by now, just to tell him that she'd made it - but she wanted to wait until she felt more breezy and nonchalant. You can't take back texts. If you come off all moody and melancholy in a text, it just sits there in your phone, reminding you of what a drag you are.
Georgie,' he said. Then he kissed her. That was it, really. That was when she added Neal to the list of things she wanted and needed and was bound to have someday. That's when she decided that Neal was the person who was going to drive on those overnight trips. And Neal was the one who is going to sit next to her at the Emmys. He kissed her like he was drawing a perfectly straight line. He kissed her in India ink. That's when Georgie decided, during that cocksure kiss, that Neal was what she needed to be happy.
How often do you have to drink?” “Every night, to feel good. Every few nights, to stay sane.” “Have you ever bitten anyone?” “No. I’m not a murderer.” “Does it have to be fatal every time? The biting? Couldn’t you just drink some of a person’s blood, then walk away?” “I can’t believe you’re asking me this, Snow. You, who can’t walk away from half a sandwich.
She finished getting ready with plenty of time to eat breakfast but didn't feel up to braving the dining hall; she still didn't know where it was or how it worked....In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can't Google.) Like, where does the line start? What food can you take? Where are you supposed to stand, then where are you supposed to sit? Where do you go when you're done, why is everyone watching you?... Bah.
One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his nose was thick and purple. It made her want to cry. And to kiss him. (Because apparently everything made her want to kiss him. Park could tell her that he had lice and leprosy and parasitic worms living in his mouth and she would still put on fresh ChapStick. God.)
>>How old were you when you had your first kiss?>>Twenty. It's pathetic. Guys don't want to kiss fat girls. >>Not true. There are all those guys on jerry springer, and there's president Clinton... >>Make that: no one I ever wanted to kiss wanted to kiss a fat girl. >>I'll bet you never gave anyone a chance. Mitch says you practically beat him away with a stick.>>I was trying to spare him.
Your own life starts the moment you're born. Before that, even.""I just, I feel like as long as I live with you, I won't... I'm not... It's like George Jefferson.""From the TV show?""Right. George Jefferson. As long as he was on 'All in the Family', he was just somebody who made Archie Bunker's story more interesting. He didn't have anything of his own. He didn't have a plot or supporting characters. I don't know if you ever even got to see his house. But after he got his own show, George had his own living room and kitchen... and bedroom, I think. He even had his own elevator. Places for him to exist in, for his story to happen. Like this apartment. This is something that's mine.
You'll never have to fend for yourself like that, Lincoln. You never have to be alone. Why would you want to?"He leaned back against his bedroom wall and slunk down until he was sitting on the cast-iron radiator. "I just...," he said. "Just?""I need to live my life.""You aren't living your own life now?" she asked. "I certainly never tell you what to do.""No, I know, it's just...""Just?""It doesn't feel like I'm living my own life.""What?""It feels like, as long as I stay home, I'm still living your life. like I'm still a kid.""That's silly," she said."Maybe," he said.
When I wake up on Sunday Mornings - late, you always let me sleep in - I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but they glow for you.
How'd you know he was the one?""I didn't know. I don't think either of us knew."Heather rolled her eyes. "Neal knew — he proposed to you.""It's not like that," Georgie said. "You'll see. It's more like you meet someone, and you fall in love, and you hope that that person is the one — and then at some point, you have to put down your chips. You just have to make a commitment and hope that you're right.
Are you okay?" she heard someone - Levi? - ask "Hey... are you crying?"Cath ran her fingers along the cover, over the raised gold type.Then someone else ran right into her, pushing the book into Cath's chest. Pushing two books into her chest. Cath looked up just as Wren threw an arm around her."They're both crying," Cath heard Reagan say. "I can't even watch."Cath freed an arm to wrap around her sister. "I can't believe it's really over," she whispered.Wren held her tight and shook her head. She really was crying, too. "Don't be so melodramatic, Cath," Wren laughed hoarsely. "It's never over... It's Simon.
It wasn't hard going to the gym, as long as he went as soon as he woke up, before he had time to think about not going. Those morning workouts made him feel like he was starting his day like a pinball, with a giant shot of momentum. The feeling sometimes didn’t wear off until six or seven at night (when it was usually overtaken by the feeling that he was just bouncing haplessly from one situation to the next without any real purpose or direction).
From: Beth Fremont To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder Sent: Thurs, 09/30/1999 3:42 PM Subject: If you were Superman … … and you could choose any alter ego you wanted, why the hell would you choose to spend your Clark Kent hours — which already suck because you have to wear glasses and you can’t fly — at a newspaper? Why not pose as a wealthy playboy like Batman? Or the leader of a small but important nation like Black Panther? Why would you choose to spend your days on deadline, making crap money, dealing with terminally crabby editors?
There's not such thing as handsome princes, she told herself.There's no such thing as happily ever after.She looked up at Park. Into his golden green eyes.You saved my life, she tried to tell him.Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I'm yours. The me that's right now is yours. Always.