A Girl Like That

It is strange, I thought, how we always recognize our best memories in hindsight.

You're not weak if you talk to someone about your abuse.

You can control people if you know their language. You can shut them up.

The trouble with rumors was that they had the tendency to stick. To coat over your logic like tea stains on teeth. What was even more troublesome was that there had been times in the past when they turned out to be accurate.

Love is always the answer when things go wrong.

When people say you’re wrong so many times over so many years, when they call you a bad person, you begin to believe them. You begin to hide your face again – to anyone – you will be judged. Sometimes, it gets so bad that you begin to wonder if life is worth living.

Stories, my father used to say, would always change the course of our lives, the greatest ones being retold over and over again not to simply convey morals or life lessons, but to bring people together. That is the reason a storyteller tells stories, he declared even during his last days, while lying in the hospital bed. So he can connect to another human being!

Love is the answer,” Porus told me, when I asked him once. “Love is always the answer when things go wrong.

He may not dig through a mountain for you, but he will do other things. Little things like remembering your birthday, bringing you gifts for no reason, making sure you get the bigger half of a sandwich. It’s the little things that turn into big things, anyway. That can change someone absolutely ordinary into someone who you can one day love back.

Sometimes life does not go the way we want it to and we can’t really change that. But it doesn’t matter as long as we have someone to love us. Love is more important than anything else in this world.

Memories, Pappa had said, can be like splinters, digging into you when you least expect them to, holding tight and sharp the way wood did when it slid under a fingernail.

In this world, no one cares if you are starving to death. No one even looks at you. They only care when you start doing things they don't approve of - like dancing with your clothes off.

Falling in love doe snot mean you're desperate.

When we talk about violence, we do not always talk about death, I said. Sometimes violence can mean the difference between life and death. The difference between waiting for someone's help and continuing to suffer abuse, and helping yourself when you most need it.

According to the Dog Lady, if you ever wanted to know what a person was like, all you had to do was peek into their living room through a window or an open door, A person's home tells you a lot about who they are, I'd overheard her telling Massi once, Even if you can't see their faces.

Descrisesem sufletele așa cum mi le imaginam eu, ușoare ca fulgii și invizibile, plutind în sus printr-un strat de nori care arăta ca unul de bumbac, dar era răcoros, cețos și foarte ud. Până ce sufletele străbăteau plafonul noros, veșmintele lor lumești aveau să fie îmbibate de umezeală. Apoi aveau să treacă printr o zonă însorită și caldă, care mirosea a pâine prăjită, apoi printr un nou strat rece și umed. Cald, rece, cald, rece, până ce aerul se subția și cerul se întuneca, devenind din albastru deschis bleumarin. Descrisesem apoi spațiul extraterestru. Stele pretutindeni, ca niște gămălii de diamant. Comete cu cozi sfârâind de foc incandescent. Ploi de meteoriți roșii, portocalii și albaștri. Planete colorate învârtindu-se în jurul unor sori fierbinți. Sufletele aveau să-și continue mult timp ascensiunea prin acest spațiu vast și scânteietor, până ce aveau să ajungă într-un întuneric profund, unde capetele lor aveau să atingă ceva care părea un plafon, dar era o membrană delicată străbătută de vinișoare subțiri, gata să se sfâșie dac-o împungeai cu degetul. Dincolo de această membrană se aflau raiul sau iadul, în funcție de felul în care se comportaseră sufletele pe pământ.

But Pappa had always told me that love didn’t think. It was, I understood, the choice between the cage of a safe, unbroken life and one of freedom.