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He glanced at me, then looked away. “Are you always this blunt?” “I wish I could say honesty is the best policy, but it’s more of a lack-of-filter situation.”
The exhaustion was like a suit of armor, but Darlene…She seemed weightless—as if she wore combat boots to keep her from floating away. She smiled constantly, laughed easily, and she swept into my life at a grocery store like it were nothing.
“Overruled, Sawyer the Lawyer,” she said. “I’m going to make dinner and you’re going to let me or I’m going to tell Elena on you.”
“Unrealistic expectations are failures waiting to happen,” Max said.
I stood up and headed for the door, feeling as if I were being chased by the ghosts of everything I was trying not to be anymore.
“That’s noble, my friend. And stupid,” Jackson said. “You need to blow off steam before you have a mental breakdown.
“A compliment?” Her light was back and she was standing so close to me. “Yes. I meant, you’re like this whirling ball of energy that sweeps people up so they…can’t help getting caught up in you.”
“The meeting’s not until nine,” I said. “You’re not on the clock yet.” “I’m always on the clock.” “I just smashed the clock.”
“Forgetting is pretending it never happened,” Max said. “You need to remember and remember and remember, until it has no power over you anymore. Someday,
“We’re all made up of strengths and weaknesses, every one of us. You have strengths. Plenty. Getting clean is a strength. Picking yourself back up again after you fall, that’s a strength.”
“The music is the language and your body speaks the words.”
Sawyer swung her down and then tossed her up in the air in the way that guys did that made babies squeal with laughter, and made every human with ovaries in a twenty-yard radius inwardly panic.
“We’re one final away from graduation.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I have no doubt you will pass with adequate colors.”
What does one wear to tell a future criminal prosecutor that you’re a former criminal?” “Something with bold patterns. Maybe ruffles…”
“Do you ever wish you could take a moment and keep it forever? Like right now…how you taste on my mouth, and your hands on me, and your eyes…God, Sawyer, the way you’re looking at me… If I could have just one moment, one feeling, and live in it forever, I would choose this one.”
“I know,” I said. “You’re right. You were right about everything.” “Of course I was, but it’s so hard to keep track. What else was I right about?”
Lsay- I thought of you immediately when I read this! You would totally say this!
“Don’t ever regret being honest. Period.” –Taylor Swift
Darlene leaned against the doorframe. “I get it. I really do,” she said and even then, shivering with cold, she found a smile for me. “I totally understand, and it totally sucks. It’s amazing how two opposite things can be completely true at the same time, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t speak; I only nodded, and it sent a tear sliding down my cheek, to her hand. “See?” she said with a quavering smile. “You feel so much, Sawyer. So much.” She wiped the tear into her palm. “I’m going to keep this,” she said, then turned and walked away.
“If a dancer dances for the first time in four years and no one sees it, did she actually dance?” I murmured under my breath.
realized—too late—that being with the people who love you isn’t weak. It’s how you stay strong.
The next morning, I put on my best I’m Not A Junkie outfit—a flowing, white dress with colorful flowers that brushed my knees.
He kept his forehead to mine after he broke apart, his own breath coming hard. “A tornado, Darlene,” he whispered. “I’m swept up.”
“You get back what you put in. Negative shit gets you negative shit. Positive energy begets positive energy. Whatever you put out there in the universe…it listens. And then it answers. So when I talk, I try to give it something it wants to hear and hope it answers with something I want to hear.”
