When You Were Everything Quotes

“I can forget about her for hours or even whole days, and then the truth rushes back like a brush fire, burning me from the inside out. The person you loved? They're gone.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“So for a second I allow myself to look and listen, to notice the world around me. But inevitably, that leads to noticing my utter aloneness, and to thinking of every ugly thing I've done that has lead to this moment.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“Some people would say that this was a coincidence, that I met this girl so soon after I’d lost Gigi while our favorite song was playing, and that her voice made me feel like everything would be all right before I even knew her name. But I’m a believer in signs.

I was right. She and I, we were friends for a long time. But things happen, and people change, and everything is different now. Still, I hope that girl knows I'll cherish the friendship we had forever. Even after everything.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“It’s not like it was a relationship,” he says, and I frown, annoyed at his reaction. Perhaps he doesn’t know how it feels… to break in this particular way. Or perhaps it’s different for boys? But girls cling to their friends for dear life as they wade through the rough waters of learning who they are while everything around and inside them is changing minute by minute. And aren’t we all a little bit in love with our best friends?”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“I swallow hard and yank out my earbuds. I push the tears back down. I'm sick of crying every time I see or hear or feel something that reminds me of her. But before I can move on, I have to shake off the weight of my past. Of our past. I need to rewrite our prologue before it destroys me. So that's exactly what I'm going to do.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“She is a force to be reckoned with, made of beauty and power and smarts. And that’s why I feel like a near-constant disappointment to her. I came from a storm of a woman, but I’m just a drizzle of a girl.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“As we roll and pat and press the snow into new shapes, I pray that my memories are just as malleable as the snow in my hands. Hopefully my past is as rewritable as I'm pretending it can be.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her.

I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere.

I was crying. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. But it wasn't working. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again.

I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. She asked the question quietly.

I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’—a question I didn’t want to have to answer—she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad.

“I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tonted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. But something about this girl felt safe. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either.

The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I was lonely a lot. Unless I was with my Gigi.

The girl, she asked me if it was making me feel better, spinning the stories. And I shook my head. Before I could say what I was thinking—a line from Hamlet about sorrow coming in battalions that would have surely killed any potential I had of making friends with her. The girl tossed her wavy black hair over her shoulder and grinned. She closed her eyes and said 'Music helps me. And I love this song.'

When she started singing, her voice was so unexpected—so bright and clear—that I stopped crying and stared at her. She told me her name and hooked her arm through mine like we’d known each other forever, and when the next song started, she pulled me up and we spun in a slow circle together until we were both dizzy and giggling.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“Words are kind of incredible that way. They have a mind of their own. But I guess the coolest thing about it is that by changing your language, you can change the way you experience the world. If that makes any sense.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“The thing I didn’t realize about having a best friend while I still had one is just how wrapped up she is in everything I do. Every outfit I wear or song I listen to. Every place I go. Losing someone can leave you haunted.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“He never rushes me to speak because he knows what it's like to be easily distracted-- what it's like to get lost inside your own head.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“I shout inside my own head. For fuck's sake, stop torturing yourself. So I imagine a clean sheet of paper. Mentally, I start making the list I need to rid myself of thoughts like these. ... The systematic way I'm going to unhaunt my whole life.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“As I look out at the blurry city, I embrace the illusion that everything is fine because it's snowing. And in the snow, I can pretend that the sad things in my life are just dreams I've misremembered.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“And for a moment I feel happy. But the snowy morning is making me nostalgic for something I can't name; for a place or a moment that doesn't really exist. I think of the past but also of new beginnings bright with possibility.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“carried around snow globes because I was in love with every place I’d never been.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“There’s a line in The Tempest about the past being prologue to everything that comes after,”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“Because time had taught me that kids weren’t kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tinted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who…thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many
books, and who never saw cruelty coming.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“No such thing as too brave,” Sydney insists. “Only brave enough.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“Stars are just random balls of hydrogen and helium collapsing because of gravity. Most stars are dead by the time we see them anyway. It’s almost like looking at the past,” Dom says, turning to glance at me for a second. “Not the future. You’re staring at something that doesn’t even exist anymore. And all those people making wishes? It’s like they’re making a wish on a lie.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“She watches me and no one else.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

“I want to build a snowman," I say, hating that I sound like a five-year-old. "Correction: I need to.”
― Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything