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Forever is composed of Nows
“You never quite get used to it,” I say, slipping the mask over my face. “You just try to survive.”
“Tu vas brûler en enfer, salope,” I answer, before our poor French teacher—Madame Dupré—can react. It’s hard to read her facial expression behind the far-too-pretty white mask she’s wearing. If the whole purpose of Devils’ Day is to confuse the dark spirits, Mrs. Dupré has clearly missed the point. “You might also say va te faire foutre Raz, sale queutard contaminé.”
“Tu vas avoir des problèmes toi ce soir, Karma,” Calix whispers as I pass, his dark eyes flinty. I ignore him, but his words follow me down the hall like an arctic breeze: you’re in for a load of trouble tonight.
It’s a bit macabre, giving out insect corpses as gifts, but Crescent Prep has been doing it for years, since long before Mama Jane even attended.
So glad we’re having a baby together. Chicks over dicks. Love, April.
“Hedonistic, isn’t it?” Luke asks, flashing a sharp grin. “Full of debauchery? A bed of licentiousness? Heathenish? Corrupt? Primal? Pagan?”
My kind of party
“Because you gave me a taste of what it'd be like if you were mine.”
He's every awful, ugly, broken thing I never wanted. He's as sharp as a devil, just as tricky. There are evil parts inside him that should make me hate him. And they do. But he also makes it so that I like the jagged bits of him.
This boy is going to bleed you dry, Karma Sartain.
Nothing lasts forever. That is the nature of beautiful things.
Luke's always joking that if a pandemic occurred, toilet paper and sanitizer would be the first items to go, that they'd be used as currency in place of money. She has a small hoarded stash back at her dorm room.
“When you saw hundreds of dead butterflies, you thought of me? That's not at all creepy.”
There's a beautiful girl in charcoal, staring back at me, her smile almost too tight but happy, even if she doesn't know it. Her eyes say she tries really hard, but she's human, and she's not perfect, and she fucks up a lot.
Love. Did I just think the word 'love'? This isn't love; it's obsession. And it isn't sweet or lovely, it's nightmarish, wicked, lurid at best. There's no part of me that wants to leave right now.
“Raz and Calix are both in love with you, just thought you should know,” he says, almost matter-of-factly, but with a deep longing making his voice crack. “If that changes anything, I'll take you back to the party.”
“Because there's often nothing happening worth talking about. But you, Karma, you're worth talking about. Sell me the painting, please. And sign it.”
He never liked me. He wasn't lying to his friends; he was lying to me.
I can't quite figure bro out
I'd just be happy to see tomorrow, whatever it might bring.
Raz was jealous of Calix all this time. Barron was judging me. And Calix cared too much what other people thought.
Poor girl fucks her way into a rich guy's heart.
Only in shitty teen novels does any group of friends have a name.
“What do I care about Arkansas?”
He's got a point. Arkansas sucks.
“You shouldn't just live for tomorrow,” I say, smiling slightly as I glance back down at the menu. My eyes are so tired they burn, and as I stare at the blurring words in front of me, I realize there are tears waiting in the wings, wanting to be shed. “Sometimes, tomorrow never comes. Now is just as important.”
“Je t'appartiendrai malgré tout. Toujours,” he murmurs as I drift to sleep, wrapped up in Calix's arms and feeling his breath in my hair. Regardless, I’ll still belong to you. Always.
We think our actions have little effect on the world around us, but that isn't true. Just one person, one moment, one single word can change somebody else's world entirely.
Live to fight another day, right? Or die to fight one. Either way. Another day, it is.
“You can’t hold onto hate forever, or it seeps into your heart. It’s the worst sort of venom. I’m done with that. You made a mistake, but if you’re truly sorry, then it’s not enough to keep us apart.”
Once again, I feel like the night queen, the bride of Devils' Day, its ruler and slave both. I control everything and yet, I control nothing. I live on repeat, yet I can dictate every single thing that happens with my own actions.
