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Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between Bad and Good, but between Bad and Worse. —Joseph Brodsky
“But they use this freakishly heavy paper. Like they want the weight of what they’re saying to sink in.”
All Eli had to do was smile. All Victor had to do was lie. Both proved frighteningly effective.
“We could be dead,” said Eli. “That’s a risk everyone takes by living.”
The moments that define lives aren’t always obvious. They don’t always scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there’s no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren’t always protracted, heavy with meaning. Between one sip and the next, Victor made the biggest mistake of his life, and it was made of nothing more than one line. Three small words. “I’ll go first.”
Counselor Peter Mark. A man with two first names, no sense of humor, and a sweat gland issue.
When Eli’s eyes floated open, Victor asked, “What did you say to Him?” Eli lifted one bare foot to the rim of the bath, gazing down at the contents. “I put my life into His hands.” “Well,” said Victor, earnestly, “let’s hope He gives it back.”
Eli, who believed in God and had a monster inside just like Victor, but knew how to hide it better.
He’d sat and watched, made sure Eliot Cardale was nothing but a corpsicle.
I want to believe that there’s more. That we could be more. Hell, we could be heroes.
The worst part of going numb was that it took away everything but this, the smothering need to hurt, to break, to kill, pouring over him like a thick blanket of syrup until he panicked and brought the physical sensations back.
He was an outsider by choice, a good enough mimic to charm his way into social circles when he wanted, but more often than not he preferred to stand apart and watch, and most of the school seemed content to let him.
Victor Vale was not a fucking sidekick.
The calm troubled him; the fact that the physical absence of pain could elicit such a mental absence of panic was at once unnerving and rather fascinating.
The absence of pain led to an absence of fear, and the absence of fear led to a disregard for consequence.
That happened to her more than she liked to admit. She’d blink, and the sun would be in a different position, or the show on TV would be over, or someone would be finishing a conversation she’d never heard them start.
Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.
“When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.”
