Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

After all, she’s seen those girls who can wear anything, and make it look natural, effortless, chic—and then there’s Alice, who always feels like she’s playing dress-up in someone else’s closet, and looks that way, too.

You’re having fun, she tells her heart, and her heart thuds back in all its stupid anxious glory no no no no and Alice wants to cut it out, wants to be a different version of herself, one that isn’t so goddamn insecure.

She wishes she could trade herself for the girl in the glass. This other Alice, who doesn’t care, who takes up space, who has no growing left to do.

she wonders how long they have been together, to fit like that, wearing space into each other’s bodies.

“Bury my bones in the midnight soil,” he begins, infusing the words with the air of theater. “Plant them shallow and water them deep. And in my place will grow a feral rose.” He leans down to Renata and cups her face, running a thumb across her bottom lip. “Soft red petals hiding sharp white teeth.”

“No, Sabine,” he says impatiently. “It’s called restraint.”

gathering sticks for years, armfuls of kindling, waiting for an excuse to strike the match),