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I’m not sure what God looks like. I don’t know if there’s one big God in heaven or if there’s two or three or thirty, or maybe one for each person. I’m not sure if God is a boy or a girl or an old man with a white beard. But it doesn’t matter. I just feel safe knowing someone’s listening.
So it’s not the dark that keeps me awake. It’s the nightmare.
Solo—it’s the best way to go. It’s a lot less trouble.
But Virgil’s father answered instead. “Because boys need to play sports, not fool around on a silly piano. Right, Turtle?”
Oh shut up
Gen was a Cancer; morning wasn’t her best time of day. Cancers were notorious night owls.
Relatable
“Mahal kita,” he said, which meant “I love you.”
“I see darkness,” said Kaori. “Your eyes are closed.”
I don’t care about my future. I’m worried about my right now. And right now, I’m sleep-deprived.
There’s always a footnote to her I love yous. “I love you, be home by four.” “I love you, be sure to answer my texts.” “I love you, be careful.” I wonder if she does it to my dad, too.
It’s not that he felt unloved, exactly. He just didn’t know why his parents were so preoccupied with him “coming out of his shell.” What was so bad about a shell, anyway?
Virgil had never realized how noisy the world was until there was nothing to hear.
The secrets of the universe buried themselves in unusual and beautiful objects such as these, and only a select few could pull those secrets out.
“Sometimes life calls on you even when you don’t raise your hand,”
“Sometimes the simple answer is the real answer,” Kaori said.
“Silence is good sometimes,” Ruby replied. “That’s when you’re able to hear best.” “Hear what?” “Your thoughts, Bayani.”
“That’s the problem. People don’t want to listen to their thoughts, so they fill the world with noise.”
“Crying is good for the soul,” said Ruby softly. “It means something needs to be released. And if you don’t release the something, it just weighs you down until you can hardly move.”
“Of all the questions you ever ask yourself in life, never ask, ‘What’s the point?’ It’s the worst question in the world,” Ruby said.
“Bayani, of all the things you ever tell yourself in life, never say, ‘There’s no chance.’”
“Don’t avoid the question just because you don’t want to think of an answer.”
The world looks different through newly opened eyes, Virgilio. It’s the trick of time. What you believe today, you may not believe tomorrow. Things change when you’re not looking. And then you open your eyes, and you see—” Light.
All caps. That’s not good.
Sksksksksk
It feels anticlimactic after everything, but sometimes things don’t end the way you expect them to.
“It doesn’t take many words to turn your life around, Bayani.”
When it’s time for the universe to speak, it will.
