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In the dream, I’m home.
I knew: that there were sharp teeth behind every smile, and bare bones waiting beneath the pretty skin of the world.
People like me have to make two lists: what they need and what they want. You keep the first list short, if you’re smart, and you burn the second one.
I figure dreams are like stray cats, which will go away if I quit feeding them.
I have no home, no porch light. But I have what I need, and it’s enough. It’s just that, sometimes, God help me, I want more.
It occurs to me that I was right: dreams are just like stray cats. If you don’t feed them they get lean and clever and sharp-clawed, and come for the jugular when you least expect it.
“You’re a pretty good liar”—I’m a fantastic liar—“but that’s for everybody else. Not family.” The innocence of it makes me want to laugh, or maybe cry. The biggest lies are always for the ones you love the most. I’ll take care of you. It’ll be fine. Everything’s okay.
Home is just wherever you get stuck.
He was a liar, but the best liars are the ones that stick closest to the truth,
I keep my hands very still in my lap. I might be sick and dizzy and suffering from classic PTSD, but I still know better than to bleed in front of someone like Elizabeth Baine.
I think dizzily that I know exactly why Icarus flew so high: when you’ve spent too long in the dark, you’ll melt your own wings just to feel the sun on your skin.
I’ve never stopped. I tried to cross her off my list that night in the river, but if I ran my fingers across the page I know I could still feel the shape of her name, indelible.
It’s easier to fall apart when no one is watching you.
Survival is a hard habit to break.
Because asking is dangerous, I could tell her. Because to ask is to hope that someone answers, and it hurts so bad when nobody does.
In her diary Etsuko called Starling House their “sanctuary.” But it’s not a sanctuary. It’s a grave. And Opal: it won’t be yours.
I meet his eyes, looking for the catch, the price. He looks steadily back at me, asking nothing, offering everything.
Apparently the maps you make in childhood never fade, but are merely folded away until you need them again.
