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221 pages, Hardcover
First published March 16, 2021
The weather worsens with every minute. In the neighbors' yard, the wind knocks over the plastic play structure, pushing it into the fence. The rain is incessant, and new clouds have gathered on the horizon. I know one thing for certain. We're all trapped here—together—for a while.
I never figured he wanted me, with my face full of freckles, frizzy red hair, and overly large soccer sweatshirts.
Vi entered the gymnasium through the eastern door. They smoothed down the lapels of their red velvet suit. Over and over and over. A nervous reaction born of the cliff that seemed to open at their feet.Be you. Tell everyone. Suffer the consequences.
"My name is Petrucio," he said firmly. "And I'm your fucking soul mate."
Titania tells me that my mother would have wanted her to have me.
Dad swore Camp Arden used to be paradise, but every year that I was there, it got a little bit worse.
"They set us up... to live out the story of Benedick and Beatrice. To fall for one another or some such nonsense."
"So if you don't pay the money back in a month..."
"I get to cut that 1488 out of his skin."
All at once, she felt a welling in her mouth, the sudden desire to spit. She parted her lips and let a long bloom of blood spread down her chin and to the floor. Sophie touched her face with both hands and took them away warm and stringed with red. Outside, she heard Michael singing along to the radio. She stood with her mouth open.
I love you
I'm sorry tonight got so out of control
You're the most important thing in the world
And I swear I'm going to protect you
The thing about the gift is, it doesn't matter how you call on it, not really. What matters is believing. What matters is knowing yourself and what you have to bargain with. And Julia—there is nothing she wouldn't give.
There are no monuments to Cory Lanez in the Rose Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California. Briefly, on Ohio Avenue, a poster of the rapper/singer had been taped to a palm tree and, over the course of a few days, several bouquets of goldenrod and roses had been laid at the makeshift memorial. Within the week, the whole thing had been dismantled, but not before the poster had been vandalized, a red X spray-painted across the seventeen-year-old boy's face.
CORA: Please. Don't do this here, with him there. Still breathing, still sucking the oxygen out of the room. Still tearing us apart.
When she looks at me, she wears the wickedest smile. Camilla faces me, the near product of the monster we face. Now I know, now I am certain: my father was killed by a vampire.
It wasn't like I was going to graduate at that point anyway. I refused to go to class, and the counselors had urged my teachers and principal to let me take "as long as needed" to heal from my "traumatic incidents," the first of which was losing the baby. The second was the wreck.
"The story can end however you want it to end. Even if it doesn't make sense. Even if it doesn't seem likely. The Greeks loved a deus ex machina."