The Sun Is Also a Star

by Nicola Yoon

To make a thing as simple as an apple pie, you have to create the whole wide world.

Names are powerful things. They act as an identity marker and a kind of map, locating you in time and geography. More than that, they can be a compass.

To be an actor you’re supposed to have thick skin, but Samuel’s skin was never thick enough. Rejection was like sandpaper. His skin sloughed away under its constant onslaught.

Would-Be Casanova Shakes Cute Girl’s Hand, Offers Her Home Loan with Reasonable Interest Rate

Still, getting over him didn’t take that long at all. And that’s the thing that makes me wary. Where did all those feelings go? People spend their whole lives looking for love. Poems and songs and entire novels are written about it. But how can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?

no one can put a price on losing everything. And another thing: all your future histories can be destroyed in a single moment.

Her face dares me to ask her more, but I’ve reached my quota of daring things (1 = following cute girl, 2 = yelling at ex-boyfriend of cute girl, 3 = saving life of cute girl, 4 = asking out cute girl) for the day.

There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.

“We have big, beautiful brains. We invent things that fly. Fly. We write poetry. You probably hate poetry, but it’s hard to argue with ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’ in terms of sheer beauty. We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”

If people who were actually born here had to prove they were worthy enough to live in America, this would be a much less populated country.

America’s not really a melting pot. It’s more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies.

Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.

I CAN’T STOP. I DON’T want to stop. My body absolutely does not care what my brain thinks. I feel his kiss everywhere. The tips of my hair. The center of my belly. The backs of my knees. I want to pull him into me, and I want to melt into him.

I knew we had chemistry, but I didn’t expect this. We’re kindling amid lightning strikes. A lit match and dry wood. Fire Danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned.

“Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it’s our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.”

Sometimes your world shakes so hard, it’s difficult to imagine that everyone else isn’t feeling it too.

Touching him is order and chaos, like being assembled and disassembled at the same time.