Never Quotes

“I don’t like to share,” he says, inspecting his dagger before pocketing it again. “Share what?” I cross my arms again. He frowns at me. “You.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“and you are, to this day, time-locked in my mind all golden and laughing. I hope you found what you were looking for. I hope that you are free.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“It’s raining leaves and smells like smoldering logs and cinnamon, and Jamison Hook blends right in because something about him feels like when you’ve walked inside after being caught in the rain and a fire’s already lit.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“Thoughts are like helium balloons—someone said that to me once. They drift into your mind, and you can choose to grab the string—hold on to the thought tightly, think of it, dwell on it, mull it over—or you can let it go.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“A real man will allow you to be your whole entire self, with breathing room and space to change your mind and even evolve it.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“There is something about Jamison though. If Peter is gravity, Jamison might be the earth the apple falls to. And I might be a slave to gravity, but Jamison might be the place I prefer to land.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“If I had the proper ears for such things, I’d hear it put a crack in the lens, not the one through which I see Peter but the one through which I see myself.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“a surefire, quick, and easy way to discern a true man among men is how much of yourself he allows you to be in his presence. A real man will allow you to be your whole entire self, with breathing room and space to change your mind and even evolve it. A mere boy might let you be yourself just an eighth of the way, if you’re lucky.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“You might think I’m foolish for jumping out my window in the dead of night with a boy whose hair is as messy as his heart, but then, if you don’t understand the lure and pull of the boy in question, I’m terribly sorry to inform you, but you’ve never met Peter Pan.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“It’s one I’ll think on for days and years and hours to come. When all time blends together into nothingness and the memories of my old life start to morph and fade like clouds being blown away across the sky, I will still think of that smile.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“It’s…if you imagine a feather falling slowly and gracefully to the ground, play it in your mind in reverse, and that’s how it looks when he floats up.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“I ken y'are fully capable of fucking the stars and forging a new path." "With you?" I ask softly. He shrugs a shy shrug as he moves towards me, tugging me in by the coat. "Would it be so bad?”
― Jessa Hastings , Never

“He smells how the air feels right before the storm. He smells like freedom, and I don’t mean to, but I breathe him in. And once I feel him inside my chest, there’s this peculiar sinking—it’s rather distinct—that the feeling of him being there might not ever quite leave”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“How terribly silly of me. How terribly like the kind of girl I’m not. Imagine it, me, not saying the true thing to spare a man his feelings. Ridiculous. And yet, it would be the first of many such occasions. It would take me a very long time to learn that there are many different kinds of men in this world (and all the other worlds like ours) but a surefire, quick, and easy way to discern a true man among men is how much of yourself he allows you to be in his presence. A real man will allow you to be your whole entire self, with breathing room and space to change your mind and even evolve it. A mere boy might let you be yourself just an eighth of the way, if you’re lucky.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“He glides in the sky and skims the stars, and I’ve never seen anything like him, like a stone skipping across the sky, weaving through comets like a beam of light. He’s all the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum we can see and even parts of it that we can’t, all bound in wonderful flesh to the freest of souls. You couldn’t even try to tell me in this moment (because no matter what you’d say, I wouldn’t have believed you anyway), but there is a steep and formidable price paid for this boy to have his freedom, and he is rarely, if ever, the one to foot the bill.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“In that moment, teetering on the border of everything I knew and everything I could know—standing on the cliff’s edge that would ultimately be the sharp drop-off into the rest of my life—I want to be able say that you could have swayed me either way, that if you promised me a life of safety and security and happiness that it would have been enough for me to bar that stupid window closed for all my days, but there is something so sweet about the unknown and something so thrilling about tumbling into something and someplace new, and even though I haven’t yet been, I suppose a part of me could tell that one day, Neverland would be both the great landmark and landslide of my life. You might think I’m foolish for jumping out my window in the dead of night with a boy whose hair is as messy as his heart, but then, if you don’t understand the lure and pull of the boy in question, I’m terribly sorry to inform you, but you’ve never met Peter Pan.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“I’ll look after you, girl,” he tells me, his face quite serious, then he reaches for my hand. “Come away with me.” He pulls me towards the window, eyes bright like the stars that are calling us. “You’ll never have to worry about grown-up things again.” He floats backwards, pulling me up onto the edge of the windowsill, and I eye him carefully. “Never really is such an awfully long time…”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“So then, the answer is no, actually, I’m not ready for any of that, and even still, my heart begins to float away, like a kite trapped in the sky that is his eyes, and I can feel that none of that matters. It’s not a choice, is it? It’s what Mary said it was. It’s the fate of my family; we’re tied to him. “And thus, it will go on,” Wendy always said. It is our burden to love him. Which I don’t, and I shan’t. But I could see how one might.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“He grabs my hand, and I want to be able to say that it annoys me—I pretend that it does—but it feels like static electricity. Our eyes catch, and the way he’s looking at me, I know that he feels it too, because rather suddenly, he looks a bit frightened, and then he snatches his hand back.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“is relieved, I don’t know why. Like going with him is a pull towards destiny. And I don’t even believe in destiny! I believe in science and facts, not boys who are supposedly some peculiar part of my fate. But here he is. Like they always said he’d be…”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“Peter shakes his head, and the way he’s frowning is breaking my heart. His tender face, how he doesn’t understand how someone might break a promise they made to him. I can’t imagine that happens all too often if one could help it…”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“As though I wouldn’t—from now on, for the rest of my stupid life—be in one way or another either enraptured or tortured by him. And then my head (and maybe just ever so quietly my heart) clunks the roof—without my permission, I suppose, in more ways than one—with a dull thud as I float up and away.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“And I wish that didn’t win me over, but it does in the slightest. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never really known the approval of a man before.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“I don’t like to share,” he says, inspecting his dagger before pocketing it again.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“Peter kneels in front of me, and he puts his hands on my knees, and this is the first time we touch. My brain makes a note of it because I know my heart will want to remember it later. I’m wearing quite short bloomers and a white, cotton camisole, and he’s staring up at me, smiling.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“don’t know what it is about Peter Pan that’s made me feel instantly disheartened, but I do. I don’t know why. I obviously don’t know this boy, except that I do, I think. I know him how you know him and we all know him…from once upon a dream. And no one likes it when a dream is fractured.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“He’s not making me feel good inside myself, yet I so desperately want his approval, and I’ve never wanted the approval of a man before.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“That’s how breathing Peter Pan in feels. Like taking the first step on a carpet rolled out in front of you.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“He smells how the air feels right before the storm. He smells like freedom, and I don’t mean to, but I breathe him in. And once I feel him inside my chest, there’s this peculiar sinking—it’s rather distinct—that the feeling of him being there might not ever quite leave.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never

“Sometimes Mary says she can see it on me, aging me, all the knowledge I try to get growing me up, but then Wendy’s always said it’s strange how love can undo you. Time unravels in its presence, she says. It pierces the veil of our understanding. It’s not an overly spectacular night. Quite regular, actually.”
― Jessa Hastings, Never