Again Again

by E. Lockhart

If she weren’t sad underneath her charm and painted nails, would Mikey have loved her all the way?

She felt overwhelmingly stupid. She had ruined everything with her unsavory, unwanted sadness, sadness that made her unlovable and burdensome, sadness that was maybe anger in disguise, maybe anger, leaking out of her, because there was nobody to yell at, nobody to vent it on, no way to burn it off. It had to come out.

She had never before thought of her own life with nostalgia as she’d lived it—but that summer it was overwhelming.

And yet, she also experienced waves of disassociation from it all. It wouldn’t last, so why did it matter? Come

But you can be talky and paint your fingernails and still be very sad. In fact, you can be talky and paint your fingernails to protect other people from how sad you are.

the important person had turned cold, and that was the person she had showed the most of herself to.

“Oh, honey.” Stacey hugged her. “Do you want cream soda? Will that help?” “I need tissues.” Adelaide sniffed. “And yes, cream soda.”

“People befriend me because they think I’m

happy. I’m not even sure why they think I’m happy, but they do. I get distracted, and I laugh, and I turn something on in myself that makes me, maybe, fun to be with. And I’m just— I want you to know up front that I’m false advertising. I don’t mean to be; I just am.

Adelaide went to the top of the basement stairs and called again. “Toby? You home?” He didn’t answer, so she figured he was out. She threw herself onto the couch and checked her phone. She was bored. She knew she should clean her room, but maybe she’d watch a movie and clean it later. Hmm. What movie? Maybe Amélie. Maybe The Royal Tenenbaums. She couldn’t decide. Adelaide got up to pee and pushed open the door to the downstairs bathroom, the one Toby used.

Subverting foreshadowing cliches; We know Toby is an addict suffering extremely severe symptoms, Adelaide begins this vignette by recalling “the time she found Toby in the bathroom”, thus we expect this to be about an OD of some sort. Adelaide’s tone is pleasant and matter-of-fact, reflecting the blissful ignorance of her thoughts at that time. This makes reality sting even worse. Adelaide’s everyday disregard for her brother is surprisingly realistic; a movie character would’ve at least found Toby because they’d gotten worried and gone looking for him. Adelaide goes in there to pee and happens to find him. This stings so much worse.

God. Toby still had a stuffed panda in his bedroom. He read books about Dungeons and Dragons. He still wanted to know if they could get a dog. Asked for leftover cake for breakfast.

Good kid details.

The family sat Shiva and the neighbors brought fruit baskets, casseroles, and bottles of wine.

Dramatic way to drop some religious diversity.

What I mean is, the Halloween candy story is inside of us both. And the zucchini. And the terrible minty.

All of the texts were seemingly random, but actually all one story wrapped together by one character. Niiiice.

The taxi app said it would cost twenty-five dollars to ride back to Alabaster. Because of the drizzle, and it being Friday night, there was surge pricing.

Reality ensues.

pinball machine. They weren’t hungry, but the soccer field was boring.

Idk hanging out on sports fields is such a small town thing.

Jack passed this one over to Terrance. Terrance picked it up and smiled.

Sending cute stuff to your friends is cute.

Maybe you could look for places that have great music programs that aren’t, like, conservatories?” she said to Oscar. “I just want a big school,” said Terrance. “State school, probably. More people. More kinds of people.” “How come?” asked Stacey. “This small town is the death of me. I’m almost dead. Look at me. Feel my pulse. I’m literally bordering on dead from being here.” “Aw,” said Jack. “But you have us now. And you have Uncle Benny.” The rest of them kept talking

Sometimes threads of conversations get dropped amongst others. Reading it happen in a book can be especially jarring because one might think it was an editing error. Makes it really noticeable. And realistic.

It did occur to her that their love might be a delicate flower that would wilt from too much attention. On the other hand, maybe it was a delicate flower that would die if she neglected it.