I Was Here

Anything that kills hope is a sin.

You had a pile of rocks, and you cleaned them up pretty and made a necklace. Meg got jewels, and she hung herself with them.

Sometimes we meet people and are so symbiotic with them, it’s as if we are one person, with one mind, one destiny.

It's funny how once you start pretending, you realize how much everyone else is too.

I’ll go where you go.” A simple statement that feels like a blanket.

I don't want to lose you because of the f**ked-up way I found you.

I was reminded just why God wants us to forgive. Not simply because it’s the key to a better world, but because of what it does for ourselves. Forgiveness is God’s gift to us. Christ forgave us. He forgave our sins. That was his gift. But by allowing us to forgive each other, he opened us up to that divine love. The article had it right. Forgiveness: It’s a miracle drug. It’s God’s miracle drug.

I can keep picking small fights, or brave the big one.Time to screw my courage. Or go down trying.

Sometimes you don’t even need to be in the same room for the damage to be done.

She didn’t tell me that she found life to be so unbearably painful. I mean, I didn’t even have a clue.” A kind of laugh escapes, and I know that if I’m not very careful, what follows will be something I don’t want to hear, that no one wants to hear. How can you not know that about your best friend? Even if she doesn’t tell you, how can you not know? How can you believe someone to be beautiful and amazing and just about the most magical person you’ve ever known, when it turns out she was in such pain that she had to drink poison that robbed her cells of oxygen until her heart had no choice but to stop beating? So don’t ask me about Meg. Because I don’t know shit.

I failed her in life. But I won’t fail her in death.

Remember, the opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.

Because it doesn't seem like living to me, it seems like persevering, like it's the most I can hope for.

Life can be hard and beautiful and messy, but hopefully, it will be long. If it is, you will see that it's unpredictable, and that the dark periods comes, but they abate -- sometimes with a lot of support -- and the tunnel widens, allowing the sun back in. If you're in the dark, it might feel like you will always be there. Fumbling. Alone. But you won't -- and you're not.

But if that’s what happens to normal, what hope is there for the rest of us?” I ask him.

It seems abstract when you’re dealing with people online, but they are still people, and some of them are not nice people, not the kind you ever want to be in a room with." Sometimes you don’t even need to be in the same room for the damage to be done.

Forgivenesss: It's a miracle drug. It's God's miracle drug.

Everyone goes there. Everyone has their days. Everyone imagines it. But you know why my pop says that suicide is a sin?” He points his thumb toward the house, where Jerry is now helping Sylvia with the rest of the dishes. “Because it’s murder. Because only God can choose when it’s your time to go. Because stealing a life is stealing from God.” I parrot all the awful things people said about Meg. Richard shakes his head. “No. Because it kills hope. That’s the sin. Anything that kills hope is a sin.

It’s an act of bravery to feel your feelings.

She’ll always carry that scar.” “She will, only if you do.

I'm in love with you, Cody. And I know that this is all complicated and confused in a wholly fucked-up way. Meg's death was a tragedy and the worst kind of waste, but I don't want to lose you because of the fucked-up-way I found you." "Fucking Ben McCallister. You make me cry more than almost any person I've ever met." "I shed a few tears myself last night.

You type what you’re feeling and press send before you have a chance to talk yourself out of it. And then you wait, and wait, and wait, and nothing comes back, so all those things you thought were so important to say, really, they weren’t. They weren’t worth saying at all.

...Sleepovers and dance parties and those talks we would have until three in the morning that would make us feel lousy the next day because we’d slept like hell but also feel good because the talks were like blood transfusions, moments of realness and hope that were pinpricks of light in the dark fabric of small-town life.

„Pete and Repeat went out in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was saved?” ...."Except she named them wrong, because it’s not the girl who’s saved.

I shouldn't have let you go. I should've said something yesterday, but it was intense for me, too, and you scared me, Cody. You scare me a lot." "That's because you're a city dick," I reply. "City dicks are always scared." "So I've been told." "Well, you scare me, too", I say.

How can you believe someone to be so beautiful and amazing and just about the most magical person you've ever known, when it turns out she was in such pain that she had to drink poison to rob her cells of oxygen until her heart had no choice but to stop beating?

I'm not sure what to do about her bed sheets because they still smell like her, and I have no idea if her scent will do to Sue what it's doing to me, which is making me remember Meg in such a real, visceral way--sleepovers and dance parties and those talks we would have until three in the morning that would make us feel lousy the next day because we'd slept like hell but also feel good because the talks were like blood transfusions, moments of realness and hope that were pinpricks of light in the dark fabric of small-town life.