Tag: before-i-fall, young-adult-fiction

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.

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 guess that’s what saying good-bye is always like–like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you’re in the air, there’s nothing you can do but let go.

Here’s one of the things I learned that morning: if you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning. It’s like that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest, and whether it makes a sound if there’s no one around to hear it. You keep drawing a line farther and farther away, crossing it every time. That’s how people end up stepping off the edge of the earth. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to bust out of orbit, to spin out to a place where no one can touch you. To lose yourself–to get lost. Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe some of you already know.To those people, I can only say: I’m sorry.

How is it possible, I think, to change so much and not be able to change anything at all?

I used to think that’s what love was: knowing someone so well he was like a part of you.

This is what happens when you try to help people. You get screwed.