Verity

by Colleen Hoover

but at least it wasn’t my skull that exploded on someone else’s shirt. Silver lining.

He breaks eye contact, and it only makes me stare even harder, wondering what he’s seen that tops a man’s head being crushed beneath a truck.

He leans against the counter like this is a conversation he’s ready for. A conversation he’s been waiting for. Someone to come along and make his tragedies seem less tragic. It’s what you do when you’ve experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you…people worse off than you…and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you.

I think the idea of me is better than the reality of me.

“Some families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner. What can go wrong, goes wrong. And then gets worse.”

For me, there are three steps to completing each of my books. 1) Start the book and hate everything I write. 2) Keep writing the book despite hating everything I write. 3) Finish the book and pretend I’m happy with it.

I don’t want to call him an asshole. He’s a little kid, and he’s been through a lot. But I think he might be an asshole.

An autobiography encouraging the reader to like the author is not a true autobiography. No one is likable from the inside out.

One should only walk away from an autobiography with, at best, an uncomfortable distaste for its author.

Your mind is incredible. If I could fuck it, I would.”

But there is no light where we’re going. This is your final warning. Darkness ahead.

I’m sure it’s mostly in my head, but that doesn’t put me at ease, because the things lurking around inside the mind can be just as dangerous as tangible threats.

the things lurking around inside the mind can be just as dangerous as tangible threats.

I was cursed with this mind that never forgets a single thing.

It’s natural, to assume the worst in people, even if that assumption is only for a split second.

I can’t explain the mind of a writer to you, Jeremy. Especially the mind of a writer who has been through more devastation than most writers combined. We’re able to separate our reality from fiction in such a way that it feels as if we live in both worlds, but never both worlds at once.

I needed for the imaginary version of my world to be darker than my real world. Otherwise, I would have wanted to leave them both.

No matter which way I look at it, it’s clear that Verity was a master at manipulating the truth. The only question that remains is: Which truth was she manipulating?