More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Life felt like hell because we expected it to feel like heaven.
When you’re in the thick all your life, living in ways you eventually figure out no one else is, you learn to sleep well in heat and eat fire. Until one day it’s all you need.
she was still shy. And I loved that. Confidence annoyed me. I didn’t like being hunted.
we want what we want and we were built to burn.
we could only feel one pain at a time, and maybe if I could pile on enough dirt, I’d get so buried I wouldn’t be able to think.
People assumed I behaved strictly on impulse, when actually, it required quite a bit of strategy to be this fucked up.
pain in the body quiets the pain in the head. It feels good, like a kill switch for your brain.
animals do insane things when they’re caged for too long.”
maybe we had that one thing in common. We had to change to survive.
When I liked the games he played with me. Before I realized I was the toy.
It was the type of ugly shit Americans put on their property when they wanted to look European, but it just kind of came off looking like a trailer-park birdbath, only bigger.
“You teach your daughter to hide in everyone else’s world,” I shot back, “and I’ll teach mine everyone else exists in hers. Go fuck yourself, and leave the kid alone.”
The secret of life that everyone knew and everyone forgot was that we weren’t alone. We thought we were unique. We thought we were the first. No one has been through what I’ve been through. No one else is feeling this. No one knows what it’s like to be me. This is the first time anyone has endured what I’ve endured, right? They’re lies we tell ourselves because we think we’re special. Because it would lessen the entitlement to suffer to know what we’re going through is not uncommon. It was a secret I never forgot and was able to use to keep things in perspective, so I could get through the
...more
but it was thrilling to be chased, because I knew I was safe.
they just had to douche it up
our bodies betray us, and it was the brain that was the prize.
the mind knew what we really wanted, not the body.
“You’re not making me dirty. There is no you. There’s no me. This is us. Just us.”
“Most animals, including humans, can be controlled by a system of consequences and rewards.” Something hit the ground, I heard Mikhail move, and his jaws slapped together as he ate whatever Damon tossed him. “We want to eat, so we do what we need to in order to be fed,” he said. “And all animals have that in common. They can’t synthesize their own nourishment, so they easily become subject to whoever provides it. It’s how animals are domesticated. How humans can be enslaved in soul-draining jobs and relationships.”
Young girls weren’t hard-hearted. He had to know how easily I would fall. Did he think it would be funny when he got my hopes up and played with me like that?
He enjoyed toying with death. Fear made us feel alive.
It was like we were animals, for Christ’s sake. Red. Anger and fury and heat and need so strong you’re a fucking animal, Winter. It’s primal.
Her heart was so shallow, she couldn’t understand and know that I was real. Every moment with her, I was real. I would’ve been faithful, and I would’ve died protecting her.
I almost laughed. Bet his dick grew another fourth of an inch off that big-boy threat.
He always made Rika solve her own problems, because he didn’t see her as a possession but rather an extension of himself. He didn’t want a puppy. He wanted a partner.
But there comes a point when you have to defend your house and take charge. And not just in the bedroom.
This is what happened when you fell in love. You lost your nerve because you didn’t want to lose what had become more important.
“I was a kid,” she said, pain in her voice. “I thought I was in love. I was a naive, stupid kid. Do you know what it’s like to think someone loves you and then you find out you were nothing but meat?” I curled my fists, taking the sheets with me as I shut out my own memories that tried to spring up. “Yes,” I whispered. Yes, I did.
Not everyone needed help to stop hurting themselves. Some of us just traded one coping mechanism for another.
I’d defiled her, like I knew I would. She would never dance like an innocent again. She’d never have the wonder on her face she had when she was on that motorcycle. I’d changed her forever. I’d bent and twisted and broken everything that made her the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.
“It’s no excuse,” I pointed out. And she agreed. “No, it’s not.” she said. “It’s a reason. Plain and simple. There’s always a reason why things are as they are.”
“It describes winter,” I explain. “My mom said the poem made a cold and bitter season seem pretty. She said the beauty in life is what we live for, and it’s everywhere. You just have to look closer.”
“Was she upset?” I asked. Do you know that at least? “She seemed troubled, yes,” he answered. “Said she just wanted to have some space to think.” Think. I pinched the bridge of my nose. When women thought, shit didn’t go the way I wanted it to.
“Because I was afraid of life without the hope of you to look forward to.”
“People are a blend of external and internal influences, not all controlled variables. Sometimes, just sometimes, we are who we are. Even in the sea, a snake is a snake.”
I needed to think, she’d said. My dick was inside you four times last night. Now you needed to think? Really?
The anger and fury and heat and need—years of it leading to this moment when we finally knew what we were and who we lived for. Red. Out of all the colors, I liked red the best.
“Are you okay?” “I hope so,” I joked. I had no idea how to answer that, and the way my life had been going, the answer could be different in five minutes. Ask me later.
Buried in the cracks of all the broken things, where the words were always true and days were too long without him.
“Your place is at my side,” I told her. “Say it.” She whispered, “My place is at your side.”
At a certain point, I started wondering—did I behave the way I did because I could? Or did I behave the way I did because it was the only thing keeping me alive in that house? Because eleven-year-olds shouldn’t be thinking about how to end their lives.
