Solitaire

by Alice Oseman

I am aware as I step into the common room that the majority of people here are almost dead, including me.

Thats the reality of highschool life

I think you should know that I make up a lot of stuff in my head and then get sad about it. I like to sleep and I like to blog. I am going to die someday.

Why is she so relatable 😭

“Evelyn,” says Becky. “Firstly, I resent the fangirl idea that Draco Malfoy is some kind of beautifully tortured soul who is searching for redemption and understanding.

She's righttt

Sometimes I hate people. This is probably very bad for my mental health.

I cant with tori 😭😭🤣

thinking or talking too much about “boy issues” makes me want to shoot myself in the face.

Lmaooo shes so funny 😭😭

“And who are you, Victoria Spring?” I can’t think of anything to say because that is what my answer would be really. Nothing. I am a vacuum. I am a void. I am nothing.

I wish i read this book when i was a teen 😭😭🤣

The large majority of teenagers who attend Higgs are soulless, conformist idiots. I have successfully integrated myself into a small group of girls who I consider to be “good people,” but sometimes I still feel that I might be the only person with a consciousness, like a video-game protagonist, and the rest are computer-generated extras who have only a select few actions, such as “initiate meaningless conversation” and “hug.”

I'm that girl 😭😭🤣

It’s just that it’s not socially acceptable to say sad stuff out loud in the real world because people think that you’re attention-seeking.

I hate the phone. It’s the worst invention in the history of the world because, if you don’t talk, nothing happens. You can’t get by with simply listening and nodding your head in all the right places. You have to talk. You have no option.

She's so real for this

Nick is actually the human embodiment of a golden retriever puppy,

He's the sweetest

I can’t really remember when Nick and Charlie became Nick-and-Charlie, but Nick has stuck with Charlie through all the hardest parts of his mental illness, so, in my book, he’s definitely all right.

All the people are chatting and laughing and smiling and it sort of makes me feel a bit sad, like I’m watching them through a dirty window.

Tori stop being so relatable 😭😭

I just like individual songs. I find one song that I really love and then I listen to it about twenty billion times until I hate it and have ruined it for myself.

Tori 🤝🏼 Me

“There’s a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is their default setting. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner.”

I don’t think my mum likes me very much. That doesn’t matter, because I don’t really like her either.

MOMMA ISSUESSSS

When I get back into bed, every single thing that you could possibly think about in one day decides to come to me all at once and suddenly there’s a small lightning storm inside my head.

I think alice accidentally wrote a book about me 😃

I noted to myself that I should probably start collecting cats, seeing as they are very likely to be my sole companions in ten years’ time.

Hahah i love tori sm!!!

I don’t ever remember not being serious. As far as I’m concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain.

This girl made me LAUGHHHH

I always do this thing where I accidentally say self-deprecating stuff that makes other people feel really awkward, especially when it’s true.

I swear to God I’m a freak. I mean it. One day I’m going to forget how to wake up.

GIRLLLL I GETT YOU 😭🫂

“It’s important to make lots of discoveries every day.” He stands back up. “That’s what makes one day different from the next.”

“I asked if you were all right. You look like you’re having a midlife crisis.” “It’s not a midlife crisis. It’s just a life crisis.”

There is a line that you cross when forming relationships with people. Crossing this line occurs when you transfer from knowing someone to knowing about someone,

“I think it’s better to just read and not study books.”

“School literally doesn’t care about you unless you’re good at writing stuff down or you’re good at memorizing or you can solve bloody equations. What about the other important things in life? Like being a decent human being?”

“I hate school,” I say. “You hate everything.” “It’s funny because it’s true.”

“Are you drunk?” “I’m a poet.”

“What do you normally do on Saturdays? Do you go out?” “Not if I can help it,” I say.

Fr you cant pay me to hang out on weekends

“Just because something doesn’t matter doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.”

“Your hand is so cold,” he says. “Do you have any blood?” “No,” I say. “I’m a ghost. Remember?”

“It’s raining.” He leans on his hand. “If the sun came back out, there’d be a rainbow. It’d be beautiful.” I look out of the window. The sky is gray. “There doesn’t need to be a rainbow for it to be beautiful.”

“I have a pretty sad life as it is.” It takes a few seconds for the full impact of his final line to reach me. It’s the first time I’ve heard Michael Holden say something like that. Like something I would say. “Hey,” I say. I nod at him earnestly. “So do I.”

But books—they’re different. When you watch a film, you’re sort of an outsider looking in. With a book—you’re right there. You are inside. You are the main character.

“She has a lot more friends than me, I guess. But that’s all right. I don’t mind. It’s understandable. I’m quite boring. I mean, she’d have a really boring life if she just hung around with me all the time.” “You’re not boring. You’re the epitome of not-boring.”

“All friendships are selfish. Maybe if we were all selfless, we would leave each other alone.”

every minute you spend thinking about what you’re not doing, that’s another minute forgetting about how to be around other people.”

If you can’t accept things you don’t understand, then you’ll spend your life questioning everything. Then you’ll have to live out your life in your own head.

I wish I knew what he was reading. I know I don’t like books, but you can always tell what someone is thinking by what they’re reading.

I don’t know why I made all that fuss the other day. No, that’s a lie. I do know why. It’s because I’m an idiot.

Me everytime everyday every damn second!

“Why are there no happy people?” someone else asks, maybe me.

“You know, if you want to be happier, you have to try. You have to put in the effort. Your problem is that you don’t try.” I do try. I have tried. I have tried for sixteen years.

“Happiness,” he says, “is the price of profound thought.” “Who’s that a quote from?” I ask. He winks. “Me.”

I don’t want people to be worried about me. There’s nothing to worry about. I don’t want people to try and understand why I’m the way I am, because I should be the first person to understand that. And I don’t understand yet. I don’t want people to interfere. I don’t want people in my head, picking out this and that, permanently picking up the broken pieces of me.

I want to give her the biggest and the longest hug in this world 🥺🫂

The problem is that people don’t act. The problem is that I don’t act. I just sit here, doing nothing, assuming that someone else is going to make things better.

“Nothing’s going to change until you decide you want it to change.”

There comes a point, though, when you can’t keep looking after other people anymore. You have to start looking after yourself.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I say. I cannot feel most of my body. For some reason, he puts his hands on either side of my face and leans forward and says, “Tori Spring, I have been looking for you forever.”

Michael is such a sweetheart 🥺💘💖💕

“We’re so used to disaster that we accept it. We think we deserve it.”

So I go upstairs and put on my gray school skirt that is too small, and put my old PE shorts on over my tights so you can’t see anything, and then I attempt to sort out my hair, but oh, guess what, I don’t care about that either, and then I go to put some makeup on but no, wait, I also don’t care what my face looks like, so I go back downstairs and pick up my schoolbag and leave the house

I hadn’t realized I was crying. I don’t really feel sad. I don’t really feel anything.