The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

Seven freckles. One for every love she’d have, that’s what Estele had said, when the girl was still young. One for every life she’d lead. One for every god watching over her.

As if you couldn’t like one place and want to see another.

And by the time they return home to Villon, she will already be a different version of herself. A room with the windows all thrown wide, eager to let in the fresh air, the sunlight, the spring.

Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu. Already seen. Already known. Already lived.

The sky outside is a static gray, a thin mist of rain blurring the buildings. It is the kind of day designed for wood fires, and mugs of tea, and well-loved books.

and it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.

Addie hasn’t been shy about her body in a long time. Indeed, she has come to enjoy being admired. Perhaps it is the natural abandon that comes with time, or perhaps it is the constancy of her shape, or perhaps it is the liberation that comes with knowing her spectators won’t remember.

“I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing. If it is meant to be this soft, this kind. The difference between heat, and warmth. Passion, and contentment.