Persephone (Into Shadow, #2)

by Lev Grossman

For some people bad things happening brings them together. We were the other kind of people.

It was like I’d become a ghost without having to go through the messy intermediate step of actually dying.

I just wanted to be somebody else, I didn’t care who. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was drowning in myself.

Honestly I could not have explained why I cared so much, but it was like someone had stuck a blunt sword right through my chest and was prying my ribs apart and crushing my heart. Even this, even this I could not have. But of course I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. I couldn’t believe I’d thought I could pass for an actual person. More than anything at that moment I wished my father were here, just sitting there watching cartoons with me. Being with him was the last time I could remember when it took no actual effort for me to believe that I was a real person.

There was so much you didn’t get to choose. The hard way was going to be very hard. It would be a long, long time before I felt safe and warm again. But I would be free, and I would be myself. Show me those fucking pomegranate seeds, I thought. Come on. I’ll eat every last one of them.