“Ok," he says. "First lesson."
Noah broadens his stance, taking his place firmly on the embassy side of the threshold. "in the United States," he says. Then, with both feet, he leaps on to the sidewalk. "Out of the United States." Quickly, he jumps back toward me. "In the United States." Another jump across the threshold. "Out of the United States. In. Out. In --"
"Is this the part where I hit you?”
“Keep your chin up. Eventually, you will meet someone who cares about your opinion. I'm so sorry I'm not her.”
“I have to smile. He's such a dork. But I'm starting to realize the one good thing that's happened: he's my dork.”
“The obvious," Noah goes on, a little out of breath, "being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I'm not as tough as I look."
"That's OK," I tell him. "I'm way tougher than you look.”
“I've attended seven schools in ten years," I explain. "So you can rest assured I know you. You're the girl who thinks being cruel is the same thing as being witty. You think being loud is the same thing as being right. And, most of all, you're the girl who is very, very pretty. And also very, very...common. trust me. There's at least one of you in every school." I watch her features shift. "Oh. Wait. Did you think you were unique?”
“You’re following me,” I say.
“Yes, I am.”
“That’s really annoying.”
“I’m sure it probably feels that way, yes.”
I stop. “I can take care of myself.” Overhead, the gas in the streetlamp surges. It grows brighter, harsher. There are no shadows anywhere as he looks at me.
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
“I’m not an idiot! I’m just twelve. I’m a twelve-year-old girl and neither of those facts are my fault.”
“Friends help each other when they are...you know...going up international hit men and stuff.”
“For the first time I realize how perilous peace can be. I appreciate the tightrope that my grandfather has spent his whole life trying to walk. And now, more than ever, I grow terrified that I'm going to make us all fall down.”
“Mom’s Israeli. Dad’s Brazilian. What can I say? I am Embassy Row personified. You really lucked out in the best friend department”
“Don't let the glitter fool you." She wiggles her shiny nails in the air, then taps her temple. "I'm up here"
"I see that," I say as Noah whispers a very soft, "I love you."
"What?" Megan asks.
"Nothing," Noah says, then pulls back and walks to the other side of the desk.”
“Congratulations," I tell her with a slight bow. "I hope you and your power trip will be very happy together. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to go.”
“She really wants to be my friend, I realize, and suddenly I feel very sorry for her. She doesn't know what a terrible thing it is she's asking for.”
“Power has always corrupted, my dear. Even the promise of power. It is a hard thing to look at through the fence for hundreds of years without wondering what it would be like on the other side.”
“I'm a man without a country. Or I'm a man with too many countries-you pick. Ultimately, in both global politics and the high school power hierarchy, they amount to the same thing.”
“He's been looking at me like I've been drinking, and I can't blame him. My dress is ripped and my words slur. I'm not myself, I think, bu then I realize something even scarier: I am exactly myself.”
“So are you going to tell me what happened last night?"
"You were there. You saw what happened."
"No. Last night...that wasn't you."
"The last time you saw me I was jumping off the wall, Megan."
Megan's gaze burns into me. She isn't backing down. "You were always a daredevil, but you never had a death wish. The girl I knew was always running towards something. Last night...you were running away.”
“I know not all people with scars are evil,” I snap. “I’m not living in a cartoon.”
“Alexei has known me for most of my life. And he still sees me as a child. But t could be worse,I realize. He could see what I turned into.”
“No! I need to go home," I say, but then the realization comes: My mother was my home. My mother is dead.”
“I know. I'm sorry." And the bizarre part is that I really am. I want to be good, to use the right fork and wear a pretty linen dress to breakfast. I want to be the girl in the pictures upstairs. But I can't be. That girl is dead.”
“I was thirteen when I saw my mother die, when I told my story. When I started “having a hard time,” as my grandfather likes to say. Would they have locked me up if I’d been thirty? If I’d been a boy? It’s a question I do not dare to ask.”
“I can sleep anywhere. Planes. Trains. Sofa. Lawn chairs. Call it the upside to my life as an army brat. Never having a home means, I guess, that everywhere is your home. There is absolutely no place I'm anxious to return to. But this is different.
I'm not trying to fall asleep in someplace new; I'm trying to fall asleep in someplace that's old.”
“I've been back less than two weeks, and already I've turned the sweetest girl on Embassy Row into a thief and a conspiracy theorist. Even for me, it is an impressively quick act of corruption.”
“You want to hear that, right? ? I mean that's what they told you. That's why Jamie is so worried about his crazy kid sister. Because-news flash-she really is crazy."
The last part I say softly. They're the words I have been carrying for so long that they have a weight of their own. Physical. I should feel lighter now that I've released them, but there is no relief from the truth.”
“My life is a never ending conversation of the things that people do not say”
“Did you see Grace is back with us?"
Megan did see me. She saw me jump off a cliff and crawl under an Iranian fence. Megan has seen plenty. And I can't help but hold my breath, waiting on her answer.
"Hi," Megan says, turning to me. "Welcome home."
Home. The word hits me. I've spent all my life thinking that I didn't have one, but now that I'm back I can't deny that I've spent more my life on Embassy Row than in any other place-that maybe it just wasn't my mother's childhood home. In a way, it's mine, too.”
“The only way to silence the cries is by making no sound at all”
“For how easy life must be for him. I wish I were bigger, stronger. Male. I wish I could make people stop worrying about me and my so called frailness.”
“Grace, if you have used an iron within the last six months, I will eat that fork," Ms. Chancellor says.
"Which one?" I try to tease. "You've got a lot of forks to choose from."
"From which to choose, Grace. Do not end your sentences in prepositions, dear."
"Of course, I totally see what you're getting at. I mean, at what you're getting.”
“scratch the surface and we were all going nuts in a thousand quiet ways.”
“There was another reason why I wasn't ready to tell you all this that night in the airport."
"What other reason?"
"Guess what today is?"
"Um, Tuesday?"
"Even better. It comes around once every four years. Last day of February? Ringing any bells?" He let that settle for a long moment before he curled his face into the half grin she loved so much. "It's leap day, baby.”
“There was only silence. It was the silence of matter caught in the act and embarrassed. There were no cells moving, and yet there were cells. I could see the shape of the land, how it lay holding silence. Its poise and its stillness were unendurable, like the ring of the silence you hear in your skull when you're little and notice you're living the ring which resumes later in life when you're sick.”
“It’s hard to tell the truth sometimes, especially if you don’t want to hurt someone. And you did. You said what you feel. And you must do what is right for you, not what other people say is right.”
“Tu mayor fortaleza es también tu mayor debilidad", dijo. "Tu pasión. Tu furia. No estoy diciendo que no deberías haber golpeado a Caín. Lo que estoy diciendo es que no deberías haberte golpeado a ti misma.”
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