“My motto for fashion: If you can’t afford to make an elegant statement, make a ridiculous one.”
“She is so beautiful. Perfect. Mine.
No. Not mine. I am hers.”
“There's no need to shout. The truth is as loud at a whisper as at a scream.”
“Never underestimate the allure of the Goodwill.”
“There is only one thing solid enough to hold on to and it is her. I love her. She is my other half, my second chance, the only way in the world I could have learned to be more than a monster. Her weakness showed me my strength, her faith made me believe, her love made me whole. I will never forget her, and I wont let her go.”
“The myriad of flavors explode on my tongue, shimmy through my mouth, slap my taste buds and call them filthy bastards, and I love it.”
“My chest aches, but not with fear or sadness. With hope. With love. I love her. I love her, and it is better than anything else I can remember. "You found me.”
“Forever," I echo, and for the first time, I know that forever is a promise I can keep. I will love her forever, until the world crumbles and this memory is the only thing keeping me sane.”
“And then she turns to look at me with the same look in her eyes, and I melt the way I always do. I am the luckiest man in any world, a soul transformed, pulled back from the abyss and blessed with love more powerful than evil or death or time or space or any of the rules.
"I love you," I whisper.
She smiles. "Two thousand and twenty-four," she says, and then she kisses me. And it is still the best kiss.”
“She wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me in tight, and I swear I feel my soul brush against hers. I expand beyond the boundaries of Dylan's body, out until I am the waves crashing on the beach, the sun shining in her hair, the wind that sweeps over our skin. I am everything and nothing and exist only because this girl presses her heart to mine.”
“I sigh into her and give up the fight. My fingers thread through her hair, pulling her closer, knowing I'll never get enough of her. She intoxicates me, but not in the way that leaves a man senseless. She lifts me up like a breath of sweet air, like sun on my skin, like...god.
No, not god. Like the idea of god, the one I imagined when I was a boy.”
“I want to woo you with food now that I've wooed you with words, song, and the magic of my interpretive dance.”
“I stay where I am, watching as she lies down on her belly and scoots under the bed beside me. I imagine how different this would feel if we were both on top of the bed instead of underneath it, how easily something childlike could grow adult possibilities.”
“The only thing better than kissing Ariel is waiting to kiss her, those moments of delicious anticipation when I know she's about to sweep through me and empty me of everything but light and desire.”
“It’s only sixteen ninety-five," I say with a flutter of my lashes.
"You’re serious."
I prop my hands on my waist and stick out a hip, striking a pose worthy of a supermodel. "Look at me. Don’t I look serious?"
She collapses into the chair outside the dressing room in a fit of giggles so cute they make my insides fizz. "No! You must be stopped," she says.
"Why?" I strut down an aisle of yellowed lingerie, swiveling my hips, batting bras with flicks of my fingers. "I will be the king of the disco. I will be—" I spin and strike another pose. "An inspiration."
She sniffs and swipes at her eyes. "The real Dylan would die before he’d be seen in public in something like that."
"The real Dylan is boring." I brace my hands on the arms of her chair and lean down until our faces are a whisper apart. "And he’s not one fourth the kisser I am."
"Is that right?" Her lips quirk.
"You know it is."
Her smile melts, and her breath comes faster. "Yeah. I do.”
“We'll go down to the stream behind the house with a bottle of wine and none of our clothes and remind each other that--even in the midst of so much goodness--there are delightful ways to be wicked. And we'll swim and laugh and kiss, and the stars will shine, beautiful and bright, but Ariel will always shine brighter.
At least for me.”
“What are you doing here?" she demands.
"I--I..."
I want to touch you. I want to curl into bed beside you and see if you can teach me to dream something that wont make me wake up screaming.”
“God, I love you," I whisper, and come crashing back into my body with a suddenness that makes me gasp. I don't know what's more shocking--that I've called on the god I don't believe in, or that the lie I told felt so much like the truth.”
“He laughs. "Having a hard time resisting me after that dance?"
"That dance was..." I pretend great interest in my thumbs as I send the video file to my email and close the phone up.
"Irresistible? Sensuous? Seductive?"
"Nauseating?”
“Think your mother will let me drive you to school tomorrow? Now that we're all friends and united by a belief in the careful use of contraception?"
My cheeks burn, the memory of my mother's mortifying behavior distracting me for a moment. "Yes," I mumble. "I think so.”
“There's something weird about that guy," she whispers as she slips into the car, bringing an unexpected smile to my face.
Ah, Ariel. Some might say she has poor taste, but I cant help but be flattered.
Take that, knight in shining armor. This lady prefers the knave.”
“She swallows, then adds in a horrified whisper, "I wanted you to make Jason Kim bleed. A lot."
I blink, surprised. And pleased, though I know I shouldn't be. I'm supposed to be turning Ariel away from her dark side, not indulging her taste for bloodshed. But then, I didn't really believe she had one. She seems so good to me. At least, most of the time. When she isn't trying to commit murder/suicide by driving a car off the road or proclaiming her undying hatred.”
“I wanted solitude, but a treasure like that didn't exist in the city. I only found silence in Central Park, still littered with people of course, but the only place that held moments of calm. I breathed in that wonderful silence as my pace finally slowed, and nature delighted my senses.”
“We all die alone though, Shea. Even if we're surrounded by others, it's still a solo journey.”
“I love a boy who can't get his shit together, but without him I can't breathe. Thomas is love to me, and this love runs deeper than my blood and stronger than my own sense of instinct and survival. This love is forever-bound.”
“I have always longed to be part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the cold unworldliness of water; to return to town a stranger. Wandering flushes a glory that fades with arrival.”
“Innovation is not born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle.”
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