More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“You feel it right here.” Jared puts his hand on his belly. It’s a biggish kind of belly and we know he doesn’t draw attention to it lightly. “And it’s like, for that moment, everything you believed is wrong. Or doesn’t matter. And everything that was complicated is suddenly, like, yes-and-no simple, because your stomach is really the boss and it’s telling you that your desire is possible and that it’s not the answer to everything but it’s the one thing that’s going to make the questions more bearable.”
“You can’t choose not to feel,” Henna says. “But you can choose how to act.”
They’ve always got some story going on that they’re heroes of. The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part.
There’s so much crazy in this world, my counting and hand-washing and door-locking and checking and tapping can seem like raging mental health by comparison. Jared’s crazy is way crazier than mine, though I don’t think his makes him lie awake at night in bed, thinking it’d be easier if he was—
And we dream the same in my town as you probably do in a city. We yearn the same, wish the same. We’re just as screwed up and brave and false and loyal and wrong and right as anyone else.
“I think it’s why my mom and dad go on all these mission trips. Try to beat some of the darkness out of the world with their bare hands.”
I squeeze another blob of soap on my hands. I can feel my chest start to constrict, actual tears welling up in my eyes. I’m just burning with rage at myself.
But this, all this, isn’t the story I’m trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people’s stories and there’s nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you’re still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that’s what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we’re the stories we’re living now. Aren’t we?
When he’s sober, our dad is a funny, smart, warm guy, criminal greed aside. Mel in particular loves him, always has since I can remember. And she’s so disappointed in him, it almost literally chokes her.
You needed to know it, but for the rest of this, I’m choosing my own story. Because if you can’t do that, you might as well just give up.
He also can’t do anything about what’s wrong inside our heads—what’s in your head is still illness but way more complicated than any muscle ache; those times he saves me from the loops, he’s just saving me as a friend, rather than a God—but he’s made a whole lot of other shit a whole lot easier.
“The thing about scars, though,” she says. “Nothing you can do except wear them with pride.” “Says the girl with flawless skin.” “Says the girl who destroyed her tooth enamel from chronic forced vomiting. Says the girl whose boobs could be outshone by a nine-year-old boy because I starved myself through a key development stage. There’s different kinds of scars, brother.”
Mel—who has that combination of total self-belief and utter self-doubt that is more common than people think—is planning on medical school while doubting she’s going to pass history.
Kooky Alzheimer’s in movies really pisses me off. You know, where Grandma is sweet and funny and says hilarious-but-wise things right on cue? Real Alzheimer’s is nothing like that. Nothing. It’s terrifying and annoying and so sad you want to kill yourself.
don’t feel any clearer,” I’m surprised to hear myself saying. “I just feel like my body is in all these different pieces and even though it looks like I’m all put together, the pieces are really just floating there and if I fall down too hard, I’ll fly apart.”
“Mikey,” she says, but not like she’s about to say anything more, just like she’s identifying me, making a place for me here that’s mine to exist in. I want her so much, my heart feels heavy, like I’m grieving. Is this what they meant about that stomach feeling? They didn’t say it felt this sad.
And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me.
“What’s important is that I know how much you worry about shit. And what’s also important is that I know a big part of that worry is that, no matter what group of friends you’re in, no matter how long you’ve known them, you always assume you’re the least-wanted person there. The one everyone else could do without.”
It’s like when adults say world news isn’t our worry. Why the hell isn’t it?
They want us a bit dumb and a bit afraid. Which for the most part, I think we are.
Politicians
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask. “The thing is, I’m not even surprised you’d ask that. We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other, haven’t we? Funny how things evolve and evolve and then one day, you look up and they’re different.”
“The mistake of every young person is to think they’re the only ones who see darkness and hardship in the world.”
“The mistake of every adult, though, is to think darkness and hardship aren’t important to young people because we’ll grow out of it. Who cares if we will? Life is happening to us now, just like it’s happening to you.”
“No one can provide the heart its own peace; you have to find it yourself”;
We’re all college prep, so most of the hard work had to be done early enough to prove to colleges we’d be worth indebting ourselves forever to them.
We share our craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love.
It felt like I was waiting for something to happen. Which has to be the worst part of being young. So many of your decisions aren’t yours; they’re made by other people. Sometimes they’re made badly by other people. Sometimes they’re made by other people who have no idea what the consequences of those decisions might be. The bastards.
“Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”
“. . . I feel like I’m at the bottom of a well. I feel like I’m way down this deep, deep hole and I’m looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don’t really listen or they’re just humoring me.” “Because they couldn’t possibly care about you.” “. . . It’s hard to feel that. They tell me. They show me. And I still don’t feel it.” “Why do you think that is?” “The fear gets in the way. And I get stuck in a loop.”
“. . . I hate myself. I feel like an idiot saying it because, blah, blah, teen angst, boo hoo, but I do. I hate myself. Almost all the time. I try not to tell anyone because I don’t want to burden them, but I feel like I’m falling farther and farther away from them. Like the well’s getting deeper and I’m running out of energy to climb it and any minute now, any second, it’s going to stop being worth even trying.”
. Can you help me?” “Yes. For now, as a start, I’d like to put you on some medication. Why are you making that face?” “Medication.” “Medication . . . is a failure?” “The biggest one. Like I’m so broken, I need medical help.” “Cancer patients don’t call chemotherapy a failure. Diabetics don’t call insulin a failure.” “This is different and you know it.” “I don’t know it. Why is it different?” “Because it means I’m crazy. Crazy is different.” “Michael, do you think cancer is a moral failing?” “What kind of cancer?” “Don’t play. You know what I mean. Do you think a woman who gets ovarian cancer
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Kindness is the most important thing of all. Pity is an insult. Kindness is a miracle.”
“I think . . . I think I don’t want you to heal my scar. Or anything else yet.” “You sure?” “Yeah. If it gets bad again. Bad enough to . . . Well, I’ll think about it then. But not yet.” “Is the medication working that well?” “No, but if you heal all that stuff, I’ll live the rest of my life not knowing if I could have figured it out on my own.”
