Bewitching

A memory came to me. One time, in middle school, a famous author came to talk to our class and give a writing workshop. One of the things she told us about writing a novel was that the story should be about what the main character wants. Dorothy wants to go home to Kansas. George Milton wants a farm of his own. Amelia Sedley wants to marry her darling George and live happily ever after. The end of the story, according to the famous author, is when the character either gests what he wants or realizes he’s never going to get it. Or sometimes, she said, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, realizes she doesn’t actually want what she thought she wanted all along. pg. 324 of Bewitching

I wanted to preserve this moment, this slice of time when the night was cool and bright with reflected moonlight and the possibility of a kiss hung between us, full of unspent promise. Every event in my life after this would be different because I would have been kissed.

Unfair. So. Unfair. Someone says something about you, and just because they said it first—because you were trying to be nice and not complain, you’re in the position of denying it

It’s hard when you lose someone. I’ve had it happen. It changes your world, everything, but it doesn’t change who you are. People who are heroes are still heroes. They may get more heroic. People who are the opposite—well, watch out.

she danced in the shadowy moonlight, and it felt good to be bad for once, really bad and get away with it, good to be someone else.

It may not seem that way, but sometimes, things work out for the best

wondered, could someone love you if you didn’t tell him the whole truth?

beautiful; I was smart, but that was never enough, never what I wanted. I was nice, and no one cared. I was a lot of things, but beautiful? Not me.

Someone loved me! I felt reborn, like I finally had something of my own after years of nothing. It was nice but scary too. Warner loved me because he thought I was strong and smart, but my terror of losing him told me I was neither. I was weak and needy. At least, that’s how I felt a lot of the time.

Kendra Speaks: The Story of a Mermaid Who Should Have Left Well Enough Alone I did not know what an angel was, but if it comforted him to believe me one, I saw no harm.