The Wicker King (The Wicker King, #1)
Rate it:
Open Preview
Read between March 15 - March 15, 2019
3%
Flag icon
before taking Jack’s shitty Camaro out to the plains to fuck around in the grass. Wrestle and run. That sort of thing.
Blondie
I mean. This could be misinterpreted lol
4%
Flag icon
Blondie
YEAH WEEZER
4%
Flag icon
Her name was Carrie-Anne: a bottle-blond, UGG-booted, North Face–wearing prepster with a perfect GPA. August loathed her.
Blondie
Bro
4%
Flag icon
he had to constantly listen to Jack’s moony-eyed chattering. It’s not that August didn’t like girls. He just didn’t like her.
Blondie
Bro.
5%
Flag icon
But it was that type of poetry that’s really personal and eventually escalates into yelling. The type he didn’t like.
6%
Flag icon
“She’s perfect,” Jack said as they were driving home later that night. “She’s even mean, just like you like.”
7%
Flag icon
He couldn’t really remember when they’d decided that hanging out with him, Gordie, and Alex was all right. They just sort of showed up one day and no one told them to leave.
8%
Flag icon
Jack stood up and backed away, shooting at August annoyingly with finger guns.
Blondie
Bicon
9%
Flag icon
August sat grumpily in the back of the car. This was horrible. You don’t bother people at work. You just don’t.
9%
Flag icon
August had been looking at Jack’s neck. The part where his head had been buzzed was growing back now, and starting to curl.
Blondie
G-
10%
Flag icon
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.
Blondie
Me
12%
Flag icon
Jack was in his kitchen wearing only his boxers and an apron, stirring something vigorously in a mixing bowl. After a lot of screaming and apologizing,
Blondie
HHU
13%
Flag icon
He did things like this often. Checked to see if his memories were real.
13%
Flag icon
All he knew was that when Jack asked him to confirm a memory, he should do so as quickly as possible so the tension could fall from Jack’s shoulders and the knot between his brows could come free.
14%
Flag icon
The boars and crows and things with fur and talons clawed at the shore’s edge, angry that they’d been outmatched. August couldn’t see them—he never could, no matter how many times they played this game—but he knew they were there. By the quiver of Jack’s hand, he knew to fear the shore.
Blondie
*crosses fingers that schizophrenia isnt demonized*
16%
Flag icon
He followed the angles of Jack’s profile with his gaze, resting on the delicate curve of his ear and the bump on the bridge of his nose.
16%
Flag icon
“Oh.” Jack sat there for a while. “I like it,” he admitted. “You can keep doing it if you’d like.” “Doing what? The staring or the worrying?” Jack just smiled and unpaused the game.
18%
Flag icon
He was valuable. He was Jack’s. Saving him was a debt August could never pay.
Blondie
Ah. Thats not healthy
18%
Flag icon
“Ow. That fucking hurts, man!” “Just a second; it will get better, I promise.” “OW.” “Or at least it will if you quit moving around so much.” “Just … please. Fucking shit, Jack, JACK!” “Shhh shhh. Just relax; it will go smoother if you’re relaxed.” “Relax?! How can I relax if you’re … Ah! Fuck.” “You’re doing really well, August. Just … let me.” “No. NO. Stop. We’re stopping.” “But I’m almost finished!” August groaned and buried his face in the pillow. “Okay. All right. Got it.” Jack put the needle down and admired his work. He wiped a wet cloth across August’s new tattoo.
Blondie
IM LAUGHING
19%
Flag icon
He wiped and pricked and wiped and pricked until the very last. Then, without thinking at all, he bowed his head against Jack’s side and closed his eyes. Jack pushed his fingers through August’s thick hair and gripped hard.
22%
Flag icon
What’s scary is that it’s happening at all. Like, I’ll be sitting in class and I’ll look out the window and there will be jellyfish floating through the sky. Real as you and me. And I know they’re not there. I just … fuck, I don’t know.”
23%
Flag icon
“We can’t have people getting hurt. If anyone gets hurt, we’ll tell. Even if the only people hurt are you and Jack … Though I would hope the situation wouldn’t get that messy before you drop this secretive crap and go to someone who could actually help,” Peter said dryly.
23%
Flag icon
“GO TO THE SHOW WITH ME!” she shouted in his face.
Blondie
Is she a softball girl
25%
Flag icon
“You’ve got this delusional sense of duty that has nothing to do with me, which you’ve wrapped around yourself like some kind of weird emotional security blanket.
25%
Flag icon
So he reached back and punched Jack in the face as hard as he could.
Blondie
Nooooo
26%
Flag icon
“Fine,” Jack growled, inches from his ear. “This is your game, August. I’ll play along while you make the rules. But don’t you ever, ever hit me again.”
Blondie
Hmm :(
26%
Flag icon
He was pretty sure he was in some kind of abusive relationship,
29%
Flag icon
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Jack gasped.
31%
Flag icon
Thank fuck for Wikipedia, Google, and WebMD.
34%
Flag icon
The blowings’ blowing and the coldings’ colding And the biggleby’s scritch-scratch wanes and dies And the gallumps burst with rules and lies Because the Fortentook draws ever nigh! Will the Bigsbanes weep and the Gorgon cry, “The Wicker King comes, for you nor I?”
Blondie
This sounds a lot like the jabberwocky but i dont remember that :u
34%
Flag icon
Cloven King is bad. People are relying on the Wicker King,
Blondie
Like when they were kids. The pig animals that chased them
35%
Flag icon
August laughed nervously as he tied his friend’s bow tie. It was soft. The moment was soft.
38%
Flag icon
When the brush reached the swell of his thighs, he set it ablaze. The flames were as tall as he was. August collapsed against a tree and slid to the ground, his feet swollen in his shoes, palms bleeding and dirty. He lay there like a dead thing. Eyes wide and glassy, staring into the flames.
38%
Flag icon
It was the debt. The river. It was his religion now. And such a thing was worth more than the mountains and the seas.
39%
Flag icon
“I was just scared,” Jack whispered. “I know.” He wiped a tear from Jack’s cheek, smearing his face with ash. “Don’t leave me.” August shut his eyes. “I won’t.”
Blondie
Oh this is fucked. These boys need to talk to someone
46%
Flag icon
“I know you, man. Peanut butter and banana, wheat bread, no crusts. Go wild.” “Oh.”
53%
Flag icon
He wished he could share this feeling with Jack. He didn’t even know what to call it. This melting, thawing, calming burn.
54%
Flag icon
Gordie, who seemed like she was trying to distract herself, too.
Blondie
Is she ok
55%
Flag icon
August felt himself bowing lower and lower until his forehead touched the floor.
Blondie
Haha what the fuck
61%
Flag icon
“Do you want me to get some aspirin?” August started to get up, but Jack curled closer and closed his eyes. “No. No. I’m fine. Just don’t go anywhere.”
Blondie
Yo what if he has a brain tumor or something? He really should see a doctor
61%
Flag icon
“I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I don’t think that’s healthy.”
66%
Flag icon
“Sometimes … you have to stop trying and just let someone else try their best. In order to survive.”
85%
Flag icon
“No! I’m finished fucking being calm. I’ve been explaining this for months. No one ever fucking listens! I have never known a time when he wasn’t there to lead. That’s why I burned down the toy factory. That is why I let him practically drown me. Because it was worth it. It’s so fucking simple. Why can’t any of you get it into your fucking heads: He is my only constant. My fixed point.”
85%
Flag icon
This note or highlight contains a spoiler
“… they found out that he had a tumor.” “Wait, what?” He couldn’t quite hear over the roaring in his ears. “Jack had a tumor pressing on a section of his brain,”
Blondie
I FUCKING KNEW IT
85%
Flag icon
This note or highlight contains a spoiler
peduncular hallucinosis.
86%
Flag icon
“I could have taken him to a hospital, called his mom, talked to the school. Hell, I had the opportunity to get him to a psychologist for free. But I didn’t do any of that. I indulged him and I wasted time.”
94%
Flag icon
The only people who were not in some way at fault were all the young people in this story, who were doing the best they could with the situation they were given.
94%
Flag icon
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.
95%
Flag icon
You deserve to heal and grow, too. You deserve to have someone to talk to about your problem; you deserve unconditional support; you deserve care and safety and all the things you need to thrive. Just because you may not have them doesn’t mean you don’t deserve them. If someone tells you that you don’t deserve those things, they are lying.