Some Quiet Place

People are so complex. They want to hear the truth, but they want you to lie to them.

When someone is pretending to be something, or hiding who they are or what they believe, they're really more...protecting themselves.

I just wanted to go to...some quiet place. To forget. To be someone else.

Life. It’s a funny thing. Some want it, some throw it away. Some cling, some have it stolen from them. It’s terrifying… which is maybe why I was drawn to Fear in the first place.

How many of them have secrets they don't want the world to know? How many of them wear masks wherever they go? We're anything but typical.

It’s the way humanity is; give them what they want, and it turns out it’s not what they wanted after all.

But her story isn't finished, and for once she's picked up a pen.

Everyone has a purpose. There are those who are unfortunate enough not to know what that purpose is, and there are those that are bound by it, thrive in it, know nothing else.

It just wasn’t supposed to end like this.” She looks at me with red-rimmed eyes and yellow skin. Colors should be a good thing, but now, they’re marks, omens of bad tidings. “I was supposed to grow up, go to college, get a job,” she continues in that gut-clenching croak. “Meet my dream guy, marry, have k-kids. You were going to live next door and we would grow old in the same nursing home. Chuck oatmeal at each other and watch soap operas all day in our rocking chairs. That was my daydream. My perfect life. I don’t want to keep asking myself why until the end, but … ” A lone tear trails down her sunken cheek. This time I don’t reach out to wipe the water away; I let it go. Down, down, until it drips off the side of her jaw. This is humanity. This is life and death in one room.

In the end it wasn't death or terror that shattered them. It was someone else's love. How poetic.

...where there should be remorse, regret, longing, grief, there is, of course, only me. The black hole, the white canvas, the empty room.

You can’t love him,” he whispers. “I’ve waited so long. Why the boy? Why is it he that pounded a hole through the wall?

If you get killed, I swear I’ll bring you back from the dead just to kill you again myself!

I laugh, a sound that he cuts short with a kiss that tastes like strawberries and terror.

I may have humored you in the past, but I’m done pretending. From now on, please accept that this is what I am.

It’s something I never knew about her. How bizarre that you can know your entire life, see their most hidden pains and hopes, and not know the tiniest detail about them.

Because you are unbelievably adept at lying to yourself. Truly, I’m amazed.

I hide, I protect, I pretend.

You asked me once if I ever get tired of being who I am,” he reminds me. “And the answer is this: only when I have to leave you.

Your terror tastes just as I imagined, Elizabeth,” Fear whispers into my ear.

[Fear] can be a pleasure to look at, and I understand how some other humans love to experience his essence. We can sense beauty, even if we don’t see it.

I can’t help comparing [Courage], over and over, to his brother. Fear has a bright façade and dark insides; his horror and windy recklessness that carries millions over the plains with no hopes of ever stopping. And Courage… he’s dark on the outside but carries a light within; he’s calm and encouraging and his very breath is a soothing dash of water on a hot, hot day.

It strikes me how I’m thinking like I’m not human, myself. Like I’m not one of them.

This is humanity. This is life and death in one room.

Maggie faces me, forcing herself to smile again. It looks unnatural, as if that smile wants to shrivel and crawl away to a dark corner to weep.

My senses are consumed by their chatter, the sound of sneakers on the floor, laughter. These people are always in motion, always full of a life I lack, no matter how much I pretend.