“If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.”
“I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.”
“I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.”
“After everything that happened, how could I miss him? But I did, I did.”
“It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.”
“Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there. and everything else fell away.”
“I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything.
"Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste."
"Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.”
“And she was good to me: strong, fun, and fiercely loyal. And if I didn't have many other friends because of her-most girls were intimidated by her looks, or thought she was too pushy, or just flat-out feared for their boyfriends-it never bothered me. I never missed having a wide, thick circle of girlfriends: Rina was more than enough. We were comfortable with each other's flaws and weaknesses, so we stuck together and kept to ourselves.”
“Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the pelagic zone?"
"In the open sea," he said. "Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.”
“It's funny how someone's perception of you can be formed without you even knowing it.”
“I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell anyone. As long as I didn't say it aloud, it wasn't real.”
“I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.”
“Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.”
“If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.”
“Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away.”
“What was the name of Pygmalion's sister?"
She blinked, twice, obviously surprised. "Ummm," she said, keeping her eyes on me. "I don't know."
Rogerson did," I told her. "Rogerson knew everything.”
“She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive.”
“I took his wildness from him and tried to fold it into myself, filling up the empty spaces all those second place finishes left behind.”
“It’s so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself”
“But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable,walking through this life half-sleeping,everything at arm's length or farther away.
I understood those mermaids.I didn't care if they sang to me.All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again,pulling me upward into light,to drown.”
“Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stp it. There's just os much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up....”
“During this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through.”
“I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.”
“Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials
and ideas?"
She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled
face so solemn, as if
she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.”
“There were moments - when Jeopardy came on, in the car during radio trivia challenges, or for practically any question I couldn't answer in any subject - that Rogerson simply amazed me. I started to seek out facts, just to stump him, but it never worked. He was that sharp.
"In physics," I sprung on him as we sat in the Taco Bell drive-through, "what does the capital letter W stand for?"
"Energy," he said, handing me my burrito.
Sitting in front of my parents' house as he kissed me goodnight: "Which two planets are almost identical in size?"
"Duh," he said, smoothing my hair back, "Venus and Earth."
"Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the pelagic zone?"
"In the open sea," he said. "Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.”
“All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.”
“And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice.
It was my mother.”
“I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket, bracing myself fo the next hit, and fel something. Something grainy and samll, sticking to the tips of my fingers: the sand from Commons Park.
Oh Cass, I thought. I miss you so, so much.”
“We laughed ourselves silly, taking back our shared past, gently, piece by piece.”
“sudden I stopped. I was out of breath. I asked myself, “What is this all about? What is the meaning of this ceaseless rush? This is ridiculous!” Then I declared independence, and said, “I do not care if I go to dinner. I do not care whether I make a talk. I do not have to go to this dinner and I do not have to make a speech.” So deliberately and slowly I walked back to my room and took my time about unlocking the door. I telephoned the man downstairs and said, “If you want to eat, go ahead. If you want to save a place for me, I will be down after a while, but I am not going to rush any more.” So I removed my coat, sat down, took off my shoes, put my feet up on the table, and just sat. Then I opened the Bible and very slowly read aloud the 121st Psalm, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” I closed the book and had a little talk with myself, saying, “Come on now, start living a slower and more relaxed life,” and then I affirmed, “God is here and His”
“What happens to you changes you. Fer good or ill, yer changed ferever. There ain't no goin back. No matter how many tears you cry.”
“We are the time. We are the breathing.
We are the air.”
“Everyone will have gone then except us, because we're tied to this soil by a roomful of trunks where the household goods and clothing of grandparents are kept, and the canopies that my parenrs' horses used when they came to Macondo, fleeing from the war. We've been sown into this soil by the memory of the remote dead whose bones can no longer be found twenty fathoms under the earth. The trunks have been in the room ever since the last days of the war; and they'll be there this afternoon when we come back from the burial, if that final wind hasn't passed, the one that will sweep away Macondo, its bedrooms full of lizards and its silent people devastated by memories.”
“Mother—” began Ramona, leaning out into the hall. Mother paid no attention to her. “I just don’t see what we can”
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