“Heart lesson #3: post-heartbreak survival.
The heart is resilient, I mean literally. When a body is burned, the heart is the last organ to oxidize. While the rest of the body can catch flame like a polyester sheet on campfire, it takes hours to burn the heart to ash. My dear sister, a near-perfect organ! Solid, inflammable.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“You can never get to a person's mind. You cannot know the different deeds and missions of happiness; you can't tell a screm of pleasure from one of pain. Sometimes, we can barely read pain. Neither a barometer nor a guide, pain can mislead us. Even in the body, the laws of chain reactions can be false. This is why people always want a second opinion.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“Love is not popular. Not noble. . . not love, no reward. Trust love. Is not love. Trust yourself.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“When I wake, a piece of sharp green glass on the floor is cutting into my hand and I know it's a sign. I etch a letter on my hand; put it on top so I can see the jagged edges bleeding out; S.
S is for sorrow, for all I don't say. S is for sick now, my punishing ways.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“Sometimes it sucks, being good, because if you make a mistake then everybody makes a mistake and if something goes wrong it's your fault, it falls on your shoulders.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“Dear Holly: Heart lesson #3: post-heartbreak survival. The heart is resilient, I mean literally. When a body is burned, the heart is the last organ to oxidize. While the rest of the body can catch flame like a polyester sheet on a campfire, it takes hours to burn the heart to ash. My dear sister, a near-perfect organ! Solid, inflammable. Heart lesson #4: the unrequited heart. You can't make anyone love you back.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“Chantal and I are on opposite teams, so we have to cover each other. The guys have this weird way with us. For example, if we travel or double-dribble they won't call us on it, or, if we get knocked down by a good block they'll yell, "Foul!" and one of us gets to take a shot. But this favouritism also has a downside because they're always telling us what to do, like we don't know the rules of basketball or something.”
― Ibi Kaslik, quote from Skinny
“The shit bowl is always easier to clean once it's been flushed. You don't need to know who's sat and caused the stench.”
― Jack L. Pyke, quote from Backlash
“Ellington Feint was a line in my mind running right down the middle of my life, separating the formal training of my childhood and the territory of the rest of my days. She was an axis, and at that moment and for many moments afterward, my entire world revolved around her.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?
“You weren’t supposed to choose me,” he said.
Behind them, Ira approached, stunned and speechless for what must have been the first time in his life. He helped lift Samuel, whose cheeks had blanched as well. Camille prodded Oscar’s arms and stomach and face. It was truly him. The unbearable grief over losing him flipped inside out. Her joy ran so deep and strong she thought she might burst from it.
“The night the Christina went down, you rowed to me,” she answered, her throat knotted as she thought of her father. She forced it down. “This time, I must have needed to row to you.”
Oscar kissed her, his lips still cold but filled with life. She leaned into him and hung on as though he might disappear. Ira let out a playful high-pitched whistle. Samuel coughed. Oscar and Camille reluctantly pulled apart and blushed.
“Holy gallnipper,” Ira said. Camille grinned, not minding in the least that he was using that annoying turn of phrase again. “I can’t believe that little rock…I mean you were dead, mate. Dead as this bloke right here.” Ira kicked McGreenery in the leg. Oscar nodded, rubbing his hand over the fading red mark, as if to feel for himself that the deadly wound was gone.
“I was in the dory,” he whispered. Ira cocked his head.
“Say again?”
Camille lifted her ear from his chest, where she’d wanted to listen to the smooth rhythm of his heart. She looked up at him before hearing its strong beat.
“The dory?”
Oscar nodded again, eyebrows creased.
“I heard your voice. At the cave,” he said to Camille. “This force kept pulling me backward, away from you, like I was being sucked into the ground.”
So this was how it had felt for him to die. She remembered the way he’d looked right through her and how it had chilled her to the marrow. Her own brush with death had been different, and somehow better, if death could even be measured in levels of bad or good. The image of her father had drawn her to safety, making her forget her yearning for air. He had been there for her, but she hadn’t been able to do the same for him. All this time, all this trouble, and all she’d wanted was to bring him back, make him proud of the lengths to which she’d gone for him. In the end, she’d failed him miserably.
“And then you were gone. Your voice faded, and I was in the dory, adrift in the Tasman, the dawn after the Christina went down,” Oscar continued.
Samuel and Ira glanced at each other with marked expressions of doubt and confusion.
“But I wasn’t alone.” He gently pulled Camille away from him and gripped her arms. “Your father was with me. He was sitting there, smiling. It all seemed so real. I could taste the salt air, and…and I remember touching the water, and it was cold. It wasn’t like in a dream, when you can’t do those things.”
Camille sucked in a deep breath, trying to inflate her crushing lungs. Oscar had seen him, too. She’d give anything to see her father again, to hear his voice, to feel at home by just being in his presence. At least, that’s what she’d once believed. But Camille hadn’t been willing to give up Oscar. Did that mean she loved her father less? Never. She could never love her fatherless. So then why hadn’t her heart chosen him?
"Did he say anything?" she asked, anxious to know yet afraid to hear.
"It's all jumbled," Oscar said, again shaking his head and rubbing his chest. "I remember him saying a few things. Bits and pieces."
Camille looked to Ira and Samuel. Their parted mouths and bugged eyes hung on Oscar's every word. Oscar squinted at the ground and seemed to be working hard to piece together what her father had said on the other side.
"I'm still here to guide her?" he said, questioning his own memory. "It doesn't make any sense, I'm sorry."
She shook her head, eyes tearing up again. It had been real. He really had come to her in the black water of the underground pool.
"No, don't be sorry," she said, tears spilling. "It does make sense. It makes sense to me.”
― Angie Frazier, quote from Everlasting
“It wasn’t that she didn’t want to die. Nor was it that she wanted to live. She just didn’t want to give up.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow
“You see and hear that they lie,” said Ivan Ivanovitch, turning over on the other side, “and they call you a fool for putting up with their lying. You endure insult and humiliation, and dare not openly say that you are on the side of the honest and the free, and you lie and smile yourself; and all that for the sake of a crust of bread, for the sake of a warm corner, for the sake of a wretched little worthless rank in the service. No, one can’t go on living like this.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from Racconti
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