The Shadow Society

There can be second chances. But maybe it's also true that things can never be the same, and that you have to decide whether the second chance lives up to the first.

When you're a stranger to people you care about, you become a stranger to yourself.

Isn't that... isn't that what friends do? They change our perspective on the world. Part of why we care about them is because we love that feeling. The feeling of being changed.

The truth can sometimes sound like a lie because we're too afraid to believe it.

Truth was like an exploding star: violent, glitteringly beautiful. Now that I had seen it, felt it, it was impossible to settle for anything less.

How can you interpret the behavior of others when you're a mystery to yourself?

A snowfall softens all the hard noises and hard corners. It's a natural liar. I saw the sky sprinkle down a hundred, a thousand little white lies, and decided I didn't owe Orion anything.

For a while there was no other sound than the liquid whisper of my brush across paper, and as I painted,I thought about how the truth can sometimes sound like a lie because we're too afraid to believe it.

I got kicked out of my first home for poking a wire hanger into an electrical outlet. My foster mom caught me, shrieked, and called the DCFS to come cart me away, because I was clearly suicidal and no one had told her that I was a child with ‘special needs.’” “Were you? Suicidal?” “I was five.” “Still.” “No, I wasn’t trying to off myself. I was curious. Little kids spend half their waking hours being warned not to do things. Don’t run with scissors. Don’t lick a flagpole in winter. Don’t stick anything into electrical outlets. Those three little holes looked so mysterious. I had to know if they were as dangerous as everyone said.” “What happened?” A smile curled the corner of Conn’s mouth, indicating he’d already guessed the answer—which wasn’t exactly hard, given that I was standing right there in front of him, and not buried in an early grave with the tombstone Here Lies Darcy Jones, electrocuted orphan.

I felt the back of my neck prickle. I was being watched. I knew this even before I slowly turned around, knew it like I knew I had ten fingers and ten toes.