The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?

And this is what she’s settled on: she can go without food (she will not wither). She can go without heat (the cold will not kill her). But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad. What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

There, at the end, when Peter sits on the rock, the memory of Wendy Darling sliding from his mind, and it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does. I remember, whispers the darkness, almost kindly, as if he’s not the one who cursed her.

There is a defiance in being a dreamer.

It is just a storm, he tells himself, but he is tired of looking for shelter. It is just a storm, but there is always another waiting in its wake.

Henry sits there for hours against the side of the bed, turning through every page of every book, every story she ever told, and when he’s done, he closes his eyes, and puts his head in his hands amid the open books. Because the girl he loved is gone. And he’s still here.

He remembers everything.