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March 19 - March 21, 2025
“There is something seriously wrong with me, and there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it,” I said to him then. “Let me try,” he said back.
He touched me. I felt him. That was not a hallucination. He was real. He was alive, and he was here.
“She doesn’t believe anything I say,”
I half-expected Daniel to call me out but he just gave me the same look he always gave me. He was my brother. My best friend. I hadn’t changed to him.
they were the most beautiful words in the English language: I believe you.
“I believe you.”
Noah’s eyes met mine before he answered, “Then I’m thrilled to have saved your life.”
He was the only person on the planet who knew the truth, so being cut off from that—from him—was not an uplifting prospect.
“The people we care about are always worth more to us than the people we don’t. No matter what anyone pretends.”
“Shut up.” “Make me.” “Grow up.” “Never.”
Without Noah, I would be truly, completely alone in this. My father might be right. If I lost Noah, I might just lose my mind.
“Words have power. And I may be privileged and have a higher IQ than any of our former teachers, but when people look at me? They see a black, male teenager. And there is nothing quite as frightening to some folks as an angry young black man.”
“I was saying that rape is about power, not sex,” she began. “It’s about using force or the threat of it to take control over another person.”
“Are you going to make her an orphan?” “Why?” “Well, if you don’t, you can have her family help,” he said and grinned. “You could give her a profoundly insightful and knowledgeable older brother.”
“I said I wouldn’t let Jude hurt you, and I meant it. If you didn’t want me in the house, I’d be sleeping in my car.”
He laced his fingers between mine, and I began to calm down.
“I want to be here.” “Why?” “I can’t let anything happen to you.”
“Were you awake?” He pretended to stretch. “What? No.” I rolled over onto my side and smiled. “You totally were. You were watching me sleep.”
“They won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. I won’t let anything happen to you, he meant.
“I don’t want to go to sleep.” I didn’t know where I’d be when I woke up.
Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” he said. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
Noah said before that I wasn’t broken but I was, and he was learning that he couldn’t fix me.
I wished I wasn’t afraid of myself. I wanted to feel something else.
“What if I’m afraid forever?” “You won’t be.” His voice was soft, but certain. “What if I am?” “Then I’ll wait forever.”
“There will come a moment when there’s nothing you want more than us. Together. When you’re free of every fear and there is nothing in our way.”
“I wish she knew that I think she’s the most hilarious person on Earth. And that whenever she’s not home, I feel like I’m missing my partner in crime.”
“I wish she knew that she’s really Mom’s favorite—” I shook my head here. “—the princess she always wanted. That Mom used to dress her up like a little doll and parade her around like Mara was her greatest achievement. I wish Mara knew that I never minded, because she’s my favorite too.”
“I wish she knew that I am really proud of her, and that I always will be, no matter what.”
“I knew I wasn’t ready for a baby and that adoption wasn’t for me; I knew what I wanted, I was sure, but I just felt—alone.”
“I think part of him actually wants to be hated. He only ever shows you what he wants you to see. He’s so closed off—it made me feel like he’d never tell.”
“Sometimes the biggest secrets you can only tell a stranger.”
“I don’t care what you think of me—I made the right choice for my life and I don’t regret it. If you think I’m a horrible person and a murderer and that I’m going to hell, we never have to see each other again. But it would hurt my parents if they knew, and Jamie—he’s
I’ll walk forever with stories inside me that the people I love the most can never hear.
“I prefer,” he said, trailing a finger down my arm, “to listen to you.”
But the ones who get it,” he said, lifting a hand to my face, “find it fascinating. Beautiful.” He traced the shape of my mouth with his thumb. “Like you.”
“Boys are stupid and girls are trouble.” Truer words were never spoken.
“There is power in a name.”
“You never know what another person stands to gain or lose by anything.”
“I’m too selfish to leave you,” I said. Noah pulled back so I could see his smile. “I’m too selfish to let you.”
You will love him to ruins. If I did, it would ruin us both.
He was writing this for me.
I watch her closely, so I can remember. She is still beautiful—always—but her cheekbones are more prominent. Her collarbone is diamond sharp. The softness I love is slowly being filed away by something inside or outside, I don’t know.
He fractured something inside of her and God knows, I will make him pay.
I have no idea what’s going on in her mind but even if it takes her years to let go, it will be worth it. I would wait forever for the promise of seeing Mara, unleashed.
“What do you want?” “You.” Always you.
You can’t hurt me the way you think you can. But even if you could? I would rather die with the taste of you on my tongue than live and never touch you again. I’m in love with you, Mara. I love you. No matter what you do.”
“If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.”
“You’re stronger than you believe. Don’t let your fear own you. Own yourself.”
I knew one hundred little things about Noah Shaw but when he kissed me I couldn’t remember my own name.
This was the boy I loved. A little bit messy. A little bit ruined. A beautiful disaster. Just like me.
