Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World (Aristotle and Dante, #2)

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

It was as though the universe had stopped whatever it was doing just to look down on two boys who had discovered its secrets.

You’re the rain and you’re the desert and you’re the eraser that’s making the word “loneliness” disappear.

There’s a world out there that’s going to make you feel like that you don’t belong in this country—or any other country, for that matter. But in this house, Ari, there is only belonging. You belong to us. And we belong to you.”

I realized I didn’t have any hobbies. My hobby was thinking about Dante.

I wondered what that was like, to be able to kiss someone you liked any time you wanted. In front of everybody.

💔💔

“You’re not supposed to be sitting on the front porch waiting for me to get home. It’s called entrapment.”

Maybe he’d never kiss my cheek, like Dante’s father did. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love me.

“That was a pretty direct question.” “Since when have you known me to be indirect?”

“Does God hate me? Me and Dante?” “Of course not. I’ve never read anything in the Bible that indicates that God hates. Hate isn’t in his job description.”

“No, you’re not a sin. You’re a young man. You’re a human being.” And then she smiled at me. “And you’re my son.”

Ari's mom >>>

I thought he was only going to teach me how to swim in the waters of this swimming pool. Instead, he taught me how to dive into the waters of life.

Your room looks like my brain.” Dante smiled at me. “Maybe that’s why I love your brain.”

Wouldn’t that be something fantastically, amazingly beautiful? The world according to Ari and Dante.

I live in a confusion called love.

“Oh, Ari, let your sisters love you. Let yourself be loved. For all you know, there’s a long line of people wanting you to let them in.”

I remember you telling me that you were always analyzing your parents. And now I’m beginning to analyze mine. When did we get our degrees in psychology?

I used to wonder about boys like you who cried—and now I’ve fucking turned into one of those boys. I’m not sure I like it.

lol

“What your father did and what I did when he and I were underage is, one, none of your business, and two, irrelevant to your situation.

lol

And maybe I won’t ever find some great passion for something like you have. But when I’m old, I don’t want to be asking myself if my life mattered. Because if I was just a decent guy, if I had just been a good man, then my life would have been a good life.

Ari, I loved you from the first time I saw you floating on the water.”

The world was a scary place to live in, and it would always be scary—but you could learn not to be afraid. I guess I had to decide what was more real, the scary things or—or Dante. Dante, he was the most real thing in my world.

“And remember that you matter more to the universe than you will ever know.”

“I learned that life is sacred, Ari. A life, anyone’s life, everyone’s life is sacred. And that asshole goes on television telling the entire world that he didn’t fight for them because they didn’t deserve it. Well, that’s exactly who he was fighting for. He was fighting for their right to be heard. And his life is no more sacred than theirs.”

“Mom, you want to know what I think? I think I’m a really lucky guy to have you as a mom. Seriously lucky. And I’m starting to find out that you just might be one of the most decent human beings I will ever meet.”

And if my life is going to be a war because I love you, which means I like guys, then I’m one lucky guy to have my mom fighting that war right beside me.

We’re lucky, Dante. Not just because our parents love us but also because they’re good people.

One of the mysteries of the universe is why dogs are always trying to lick your lips.

lmao

“How do you know all these things?” “It’s called living, Ari.”

If we’re very lucky, the universe will send us the people we need to survive.

My mother was a good neighbor, and I think, for her, that was a way of loving people.

I know I don’t know much about love—but what I know about love, my mother and Dante taught me.”

<33

Jaime and I have always believed that a parent holds a sacred office. And we will never abdicate or resign from that office just because things get difficult.

I’ve never lived my life according to what other people thought of me. And I’m not going to start now.”

“When you are standing all alone,” she whispered, “the people who notice—those are the people who stand by your side. Those are the people who love you.”

I DIDN’T GET INTO A fight on the first day of school. I saved that for the second day.

*facepalm*

The world I wanted to live in didn’t exist. And I was struggling to love the world I did live in. I wondered if I was strong enough or good enough to love a world that hated me.

People couldn’t give you the things a dog could give you—and I didn’t have the language to translate the love that lived in Legs, the love she gave me, the love that made me want to live again.

<33

Is it okay if a guy wants to grow up to be like his mother?”

“Come and swim all the waters of the world with me.”

“When I think of the word ‘love’—I think of the name Dante.”

That’s what it feels like, Dante, to walk in the changes that have occurred in me since I met you. I may not fit the definition of a happy guy. But it doesn’t hurt anymore to be me.

his growth >>>

I loved her because I was lost and she was lost, and a lost boy and a lost dog equals love.

“Don’t ever let the hate rob you of the life you’ve been given.”

How strange and how beautiful, to be sitting in a car and singing with your father.

“Why don’t you and Dad go dancing?” “Your father’s worst nightmare.

Science tells us that we are all energy and that we are all connected. And once energy is present in the universe, it doesn’t just disappear. Life moves from one form of energy to another. Your father is still very much a part of the universe.”

“Mom, you are the quintessential schoolteacher.” “Thank you—I think.”

What advice would I give to Ari to help him live his life? I would tell him this: Never do anything to prove to anyone else, or even to prove to yourself, that you’re a man. Because you are a man.

It was true, adults were teachers. They taught you things by how they behaved.

‘There are no reasons to hate other people—especially other kinds of people. We make up reasons why other people are less human than we are. We make up reasons and then we believe those reasons and then those reasons become true and they are true because now we believe they are facts and we even forget where it all started—with a reason we made up.’