More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The song was senseless and sappy, but it made me feel something. And although I couldn’t articulate it at that age, feeling something—anything—made me conscious that I was alive.
Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down. And sometimes, when you’re trying to find your way, one of those gods actually shows up and gives you directions.
I had a whole speech prepared, in case I got close enough to talk. I was going to tell Doug that in my twenty-six years on the planet, nothing had inspired me or moved me like his music. I was going to tell him that for the past decade he had been both father and mother to me, and that “The Day I Became a Ghost” wasn’t just a song, it was a friend who took my hand and kept me company whenever I felt alone.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be successful,” he said. “I do. But music’s not a popularity contest to me. You either mean it or you don’t. Fuck the ones who don’t. I have no use for them.
“I couldn’t give in to them because I knew that if I did, I’d be giving away the part of me that belonged to her.”
The minute the car crossed the state line, it all came back to me. Paul was in the air. He was the air. He hovered above the city breathing on me, stifling me, and providing life at the same time.
There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a person over and over every time you lay eyes on them, especially when you hate their goddamn guts.
This is what it means to be in the middle of love, I thought. Being in the middle of love is like being in the middle of a war zone.
