Looking for Alaska

by John Green

But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating.

thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

You don’t have to care about her, I told myself. Screw her.

The Great Perhaps was upon us, and we were invincible. The plan may have had faults, but we did not.

I wondered if he was fast.

HILARIOUS

we spent the day hiding out, but loudly. Hiding out loud.

scared by her inaction into perpetual action.

But more importantly, maybe she’d been scared of being paralyzed by fear again.

“No, it’s okay. It’s just a little sore from the swan.”

and I sat there, waiting.

Never have I so wanted to be Crest Complete.

didn’t know how to talk to her. And I was frustrated with trying, so after a little while, I got up to go. I kissed her good-bye. I could do that, at least.

I know so

many last words. But I will never know hers.

That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without.

I was caught in a love triangle with one dead side.

felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can’t due to deadness,

She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different.

only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.

Thomas Edison’s last words were: “It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.