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I didn’t remind myself of them, didn’t strain to keep them in my memory, because they were indelibly written there.
I just remembered things, remembered people. Even when I would rather not.
I pretty much never made promises, simply because then I felt bound to keep them.
I’d had too many opportunities to give up, give in, and I’d kept going. If I hadn’t fallen to suicide, I wasn’t going to go meekly to my death.
“Those who want to believe something badly enough generally do,”
Silver lining and all that bullshit.
Three butterflies for a broken girl: one for personality, one for possession, and one for pettiness.
“When you don’t receive justice, you make it.”
Without justice, we have no order and no hope.”
She loved to laugh and seized on any excuse to do so, creating one of those relentlessly cheerful outlooks that would be irritating if you didn’t know she knew the gravity of the situation.
She chose to be happy because she didn’t like being sad or pissed off.
I’m not that person. I don’t choose to be sad or pissed off, but I don’t exactly choose to be happy, either.
“In death as in life,”
How could a parent have so much control over a child, that paternal pride meant more than what was right?
“Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact. No one actually gets to live their lives that way.”
He was blind, but he wasn’t stupid. That he chose to be ignorant really pissed me off.
Butterflies are short-lived creatures, and that too was part of her reminder.
All of them knew what was happening, not just to themselves but to each other.
and watch all the rest of the world walk away from her.
and that little girl didn’t need the sympathy so much as she needed to just finally be forgotten.
“Some of them are friends. All of them are family. I guess that’s just what happens.”
Sometimes it was hard to make yourself get to know other people. It would just hurt more when they died, or hurt them when you died. Sometimes it was hard to believe it was worth that pain.
For better or worse—almost always worse—we were Butterflies. Irrevocable common ground.
You mourned them every single day, as they mourned you, because every day we were dying.”
but she was there, still a little broken, with a few of the essential pieces missing, but responsive. I hugged her tightly, and for an agonizing moment I wondered if it would have been kinder to let her stay shattered.
depression gave her a different perspective than the rest of us, and she’d had to carefully piece herself back together several times before.
There’s this moment when you know that suddenly, everything’s changed. Most people have that moment many times in their lives.
I knew that even if nothing else changed, everything was different.
“I can’t think like that. Not when I don’t have any chance to be that person again.”
“I love you, Maya, and I swear, I will never hurt you.”
Desmond wasn’t good, no matter how much he wanted to be, and better than his family just wasn’t enough.
“The real world intrudes, doesn’t it?”
Taking direct action against his father would be complicated, I got that, but why not give us the chance to rescue ourselves? “My family’s name, our reputation, our company . . . I can’t be the one to destroy that.” Because a name means more than a life. Than all our lives.
He thought this was happiness, that this was somehow healthy and stable, the kind of thing you build a life around.
Sometimes it’s the little things.
“Honestly? I don’t think I know what that kind of love is. I’ve seen it in a few others, but for myself? Maybe I’m just not capable of it.”
I knew I was in the presence of something extraordinary, something that not everyone found or was capable of recognizing and sustaining.
And I’m the first person to admit that I am one fucked-up individual.
If you don’t ask, you can keep your head buried in the sand.”
Cowardice may be our natural state but it’s still a choice.
How could a child be worth less than a name? How could all our lives be worth less than a reputation?
You’re right: I am a coward. And I am selfish, because I don’t want to hurt my family,
“I kept telling myself that I needed to learn to be braver, and Jesus, what a stupid thing to think. You don’t learn to be brave. You just have to do what’s right, even if it scares you.
“It might have been kinder to leave him without the consequences of his cowardice. It was far too little and far too late, but he finally did the right thing, and now he’ll be punished for taking so long. Maybe he could have died brave, but he’ll live a coward.”
