Kindle Notes & Highlights
You’re scrolling through the Instagram of some girl who definitely no longer matters (and possibly never even existed), trying to figure out if she’s queer off of little more than her following list and the lyrics that she’s put in her captions.
you wonder, a little, how a car crash can feel so much like someone else’s version of heaven. And you wonder, a little, if this is you passing over into that.
There are no ‘upsides’ to your parents dying, but Hazel was supposed to make things suck less.
Last time you started at a new school, your biggest concern was other people figuring out that you weren’t a people person.
You’d already learned that people didn’t look at girls like you (or maybe even girls at all) and see autism. You’d be ‘quirky’ or ‘quiet’ or ‘odd’ or some other label that was broad enough to let people not feel too guilty when they ostracized you for it.
Beckman had on a baseball cap and sparkly nail polish the first time you met him. They pulled you away from your designated buddy meeting spot and said, “we’re partners, I’m Ryder, I’m ace, and I’m not into dating, so try not to fall in love with me.”
FAVE ALREADY
You’d spent so much time worrying about whether or not you had a ‘right’ to call yourself pan if you hadn’t liked exactly the same amount of every gender,
THAT'S SUCH A MOOD HOLY SHIT I FEEL CALLED OUT
You and Ryder used to show up early every first day to make sure you got a back corner seat so no one would catch you playing Fireboy and Watergirl during class.
MOOD
is suddenly an incredibly hot person sitting down beside you.
I can only dream
is going to love this. He’ll have them kidnapped to 106 before the end of the day.
Allies welcome and all that. We meet Thursdays.” “I’m definitely not an ally.” Their eyebrows furrow. Yours shoot up. “Not like… I’m gay. Pan. And ace. I’ll be there, probably. I was in my old school’s.”
She wants to talk about your parents and you suddenly really, really wish you were talking about your autism.
This is a girl who fought a craft store and emerged covered in its innards.
The truth was, your throat was just too small for your mind.
I’m just blunt sometimes. And not super used to talking to people who aren’t used to me being annoying.”
“Look, Eleanor,” she leans forward to reach for the hand that you’ve tried to get back to sorting. You pull it back under the table and hers just kind of stays there. “Or… shit. Don’t look, I guess. Is that a thing? Look your preferred level of lookiness.”
“feels a lot more targeted if other people start pretending to insult you before you’re even friends, I guess.” Verra nods. “Right. Guess we’ll just have to be friends then.” You chew on your cheek. “I wasn’t trying to—” “Nope. There’s no way I’m gonna remember to pretend to be nice long enough to get there naturally, so we’ll just have to speed run it. We’re officially friends now. There.”
sometime after 9:06, on December thirteenth, you opened the door. At no point after December thirteenth, 2018, are you ever going to do that again.
December thirteenth, you were supposed to go Christmas tree shopping. You had homework. You didn’t do it. You woke up alone.
then, every day since, you’ve woken up alone again. And You will, until the end of time. Just days and years of only the sound of your own pulse and—
You do not have survivor’s guilt.
That is a lie I think you are lying to me
Your old GSA was your safe space, but you’re not supposed to have those anymore, are you? You don’t have survivor’s guilt, but you have mourner’s. That, it turns out, is a lot harder to cope with.
“I’m trying to decide if you look incredibly pathetic or incredibly cool right now.”
I aspire to get people to have this question about me
“You out?” she asks. “Currently trying to become in.” She rolls her eyes. “As queer, Eleanor.” “Oh,” you feel your face heat. “Yes, then.”
“It’s nine, according to google maps. Wanna go do something completely irrational?” Maybe your heartbeat is too loud for any of your common sense to get through, because you take a deep breath, swallow, and say “sure.”
“I’m voluntarily spending time with you because you’re a half decent person to voluntarily spend time with.”
You practically run to find the QSA (room 118, it feels more unnatural, somehow)
I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS IS HITTING ME BUT I JUST FEEL THIS SO MUCH
They hug you and you learn four things in an instant: 1) Priya is the kind of person who hugs virtual strangers over pretty much anything 2) Priya smells like vanilla, just behind their neck 3) Being hugged by Priya makes it incredibly difficult to get your heart to stay in your chest 4) You really, really want them to hug you again
then they’re gone. And you, you’re on your way straight to the milky way.
“Friends are different. Love interests are supposed to be incredibly more mentally stable.”
What if I’m busy?” Verra raises an eyebrow. “Are you?” You sigh. “See you at the mall.”
“Thank you,” you accidentally say out loud. She frowns. “What?” You squirm on the bench. “You just… for making me feel normal, I guess.” She looks up at you through her eyelashes. “Do we… want to feel normal?” “I think so,” you nod. “For now.”
“She’s your cousin though,” Verra shrugs, pulling her textbook out of her bag to get back to work. “I’m sure you know her better than I do.” That was the very thing Hazel used against you: that you’re pretty sure you know nothing about her at all.
you speak allistic more than other people give you credit for. You know what “okay, whatever”, means.
“Maybe I’m kind of realizing that I’m an incredibly draining, one sided person to be friends with right now?
You have to tell me what I’m doing wrong or I won’t be able to fix it.”
“You’re… I was going to say perfect but I know you’d call bullshit on that. Messy in all the best ways and perfect in all the important ones,
I like us the way we are now.”
you like Verra a little bit more than you’re supposed to like a friend. Maybe you don’t. Either way, you know that she knows that sixteen year olds are not supposed to be terrified by the sound of cars.
“All around the Mulberry Bush, the monkey—” You eyes fly open. “Are you—” your throat’s still clogged. You blink. Sway. Try again. “Did you just try… singing ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’?” Hazel shrugs. “It used to work.” “Yeah, when I was an actual child.” “Well it’s not like I’d know what works now!”
that’s my irrational thing, I think. My biggest one.” “Why are you so obsessed with those?” “That’s how everyone else deals with death,” you try to explain. “because someone being here one day then gone the next is too big for most people’s brains to make sense of, you know? So they… they cry or scream or self destruct even though that won’t fix anything. They decorate bodies and hold a party then they talk to graves and stars and… I can’t cry about them. My brain’s too aware that that won’t actually do anything, I think. But I can cry about cars.” You squeeze your eyes shut. “That doesn’t
...more
You used to like me! Why are you suddenly so—” “It was never my job to like you,”
I feel the literal tears iny eyes. why.
pretty sure you’re not on the aromantic spectrum. Maybe you are though. You’ll only ever be able to experience your own brain, so maybe other people don’t experience romantic attraction quite the way that you do either. Or maybe, the asexuality just makes it harder to identify. You like people romantically. You know that. You just sometimes have trouble knowing if someone makes you nervous because you want to date them, or because you think they’d make a good friend.
You don’t dream of cars and rubble. You don’t even dream of oceans. It is a night of blackness and quiet and the sound of your little cousin breathing. You’ve missed the visit entirely, for the first time in months. You don’t think they’d mind though. They knew you well enough to know that this is exactly where you’ve always belonged.
jump up, pulling her into a hug. “Jesus, you’re emotional,” she says. But she’s the last one to let go.
“You’re not supposed to be comforting me,” you remember. “You don’t want to—" “Shut up, Ellie,” Hazel rolls her eyes. “It’s not your turn. C’s for clementine.” The train ride takes an hour and thirteen minutes. Hazel’s not quiet for a single one of them.
I LOVE THEM YOUR HONOUR
Hazel apparently does not consider trampoline parks cool stuff. Nor is she eager to get lunch at a restaurant themed after excrement. But she would have been, once upon a time. She should have been, with you. So, you insist that you do both.
“If you’re about to pretend you ghosted all your friends for their own goods, I’ll stab you to death. Right here, right now.”
I love you
they make my throat too full to cry over it.”
“She’s very strict and pretentious.” you nod solemnly. “I’m protecting my artistic vision!” “Very strictly and pretentiously,” you agree.
