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This book is dedicated to all the kids whose arms are filled with too much for them to hold, but who are trying their best not to drop a single thing. I see you and I am proud of you for trying.
Only roughly half of the rules made logical sense. The other half seemed deliberately designed to be broken accidentally.
Jack didn’t look at him. He let the words hang in the air awhile, then he began to walk. And like always, August followed him.
He was mostly reading it just to be able to say he did. You’d be surprised how many people did that with the classics.
He did things like this often. Checked to see if his memories were real.
He’d seen Jack fall and sprinted toward the pit; August had leaped off the edge and dove headlong into the darkness behind him. He would pull them both out of the deep with his bare hands. It was the debt. The river. It was his religion now. And such a thing was worth more than the mountains and the seas.
“Will you stop complaining if we stop at a Cracker Barrel?” Jack teased. “I know your complex relationship with that chain.” “Cracker Barrel is great. It is a restaurant and a toy store and a souvenir store all in one. We’ve been over this,” August said curtly.
The world was so big and they were very small and there was no one around to stop terrible things from happening.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I get a craving for something. Something expensive or hard to find, like truffles. If I can’t get them, I try for the next best thing. M&M’S, Snickers. Whatever. But no matter how much I have, it doesn’t quite hit the spot…” She gazed over at him. “I don’t mind being that for you.”
Daaaaamn call him out
But as with most things, he got used to it. He didn’t have a choice.
“WHY?” August shouted, pushing away from the table and standing up. “Why do I have to always be the responsible one?”
You’re so stupid, August. You’re so stupid and I love you so much.”
In this world and the next. They could take everything away and leave us with nothing, and I would still love you.”
“Do they still sing songs of my victory?” August choked. “They do. And they’ll crescendo like beacons to the farthest reaches. With every new breath of life that forms in a world without darkness that came at the price of your hands and your mind.”
“I’ll be back for you. I always will.”
Many young people, perhaps like you, find themselves being forced to carry something they never imagined would be so heavy, with no one around to support them. It must be said that they are rarely ever at fault for the multitude of ways they choose to bear that load. Even if they are destructive. They are not “failing”; someone has failed them.
