The Darkest Part of the Forest

Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself.

I love like in the storybooks. I love you like in the ballads. I love you like a lightning bolt. I've loved you since the third month you came and spoke with me. I loved that you made me want to laugh. I loved the way you were kind and the way you would pause when you spoke, as though you were waiting for me to answer you. I love you and I am mocking no one when I kiss you, no one at all.

I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life and start figuring out the one I have.

We love until we do not. For us, love doesn't fade gradually. It snaps like a branch bent too far.

There's a monster in our wood. She'll get you if you're not good. Drag you under leaves and sticks. Punish you for all your tricks. Anest of hair and gnawed bone. You are never, ever coming... home.

The only way to end grief was to go through it.

And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music, There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king, embracing a changeling like a bother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion.

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves.

Every child needs a tragedy to become truly interesting.

They were in love with him because he was a prince and a faerie and magical and you were supposed to love princes and faeries and magic people. They loved him the way they’d loved Beast the first time he swept Belle around the dance floor in her yellow dress. They loved him as they loved the Eleventh Doctor with his bow tie and his flippy hair and the Tenth Doctor with his mad laugh. They loved him as they loved lead singers of bands and actors in movies, loved him in such a way that their shared love brought them closer together.

Well fine, then. I could send you out to win my favor. Possibly on a quest involving bringing a large mug of coffee and a doughnut. Or the wholesale slaughter of all my enemies. I haven't decided which.

He saw now the ways in which they tried to be careful with each other, afraid of hitting those raw places where they might hurt each other almost without trying. But sparing another person is a tricky thing. It’s easy to think you’re succeeding when you’re failing spectacularly.

If she'd known she was going to die at his hands, she would have dressed up.

Hazel, Hazel, blue of eye. Kissed the boys and made them cry,

Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.

You and your sister are very dear to each other. To show your regard, you give each other lovely bouquets of lies.

I wanted to be in love like in the storybooks and songs and ballads. Love that hits you like a lightning bolt. And I'm sorry, because yeah, I get that you think I'm ridiculous. I get that you think I'm hilarious. I know, I get that you're mocking me. I get how stupid I am, but at least I know.

Hazel never cried. She was forged from iron; she never broke.

Anyone who offers up their heart on a silver platter deserves what they get.

They are twilight creatures, beings of dawn and dusk, of standing between one thing and another, of not quite and almost, of borderlands and shadows.

His song began to change. It grew softer, sweeter, like the morning after a long cry, when your head still hurt but your heart was no longer broken.

It was enough to make her want to sit down on the ground and cry. It was too much. But there was no one else, so it couldn't be too much. It had to be exactly enough. It had to be what she could handle, and she had to handle it

Maybe, Hazel decided, maybe they could both learn how. Not just making-up-stories-in-which-you're-happy happiness, but the real thing. She leaned across the bed and hugged him with all the strength in her limbs, hugged him until her bones ached. But no matter how hard she hugged him, she knew it would never be enough. "I promise," she whispered. "I'll try.

What she did know was that normal was a lot more tempting when it was out of reach.

There don't have to be first dates and second dates. We're not normal. We can do this anyway you want. A relationship can be whatever you want it to be. We get to make this part up. We get to tell our own story.

They loved him because he was a prince and a faerie and magical and you were supposed to love princes and faeries and magical people.

In general, her family wasn't very good at talking about important stuff. And of all of them, she was the least good at it. When she tried, it felt like all the chains on all her imagined safes and trunks started rattling

All boys lie," Ben said. "And all girls lie,too. I lie. You lie. Don't pretend you don't.

Stories like that were will-o'-the-wisps, glowing in the deepest, darkest parts of forests, leading travelers farther and farther from safety, out toward an ever-moving mark.

He gave her a smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. “Eh, it wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t have to study for the SATs or get a summer job or figure out my major. I can drink Elderflower wine all day, dance all through the night, and sleep on a bower of roses.” Hazel made a face. “I’m pretty sure there are some colleges where you can do that. I bet there are some colleges where you can major in that.