Then Came You

Only someone who had experienced such bitter despair would be able to recognize it in another.

Sooner or later everyone was driven to love someone they could never have.

I don't agree with you, Derek. I've had my ... I mean, I've done . . .that . . . and it wasn't at all what I expected. And Giuseppe was known everywhere as Italy's greatest lover.
Everyone said so."
Derek's bright green eyes filled with mockery. "Sure 'e did it right?"
"Since I conceived a child from the act, he must have done something right," Lily retorted.  

"Dearest Lily." Penelope took her hand and pressed it between her own. "Since I was a little girl, I've
always thought of you as the most beautiful, most courageous, most everything. But not practical. Never practical."

Everyone striving to be witty and sought-after, everyone talking and no one listening...

"I'm sorry for being such a scapegrace," Lily said. "Perhaps if I'd been a son, we might have found some
way to get along together. Instead I've been rebellious and foolish, and I've made such mistakes . . . oh, if
you only knew, you'd be even more ashamed of me than you already are. But you should be sorry, too,
Papa. You've been little more than a stranger to me. Since I was a child I've had to forge my own way.
You were never there. You never punished or scolded me, or did anything to show
you were aware of my existence. At least Mother bothered to cry." She raked her hands through her hair
and sighed. "All the times I needed someone to turn to ... I should have been able to rely on you. But you
kept to your books and your philosophical treatises. Such a fine, scholarly mind you have, Papa."
George glanced at her then, his eyes filled with protest and rebuke. Lily smiled sadly. "I just wanted to
tell you that in spite of everything . . . I still care about you. I wish ... I wish you could say you felt the
same."

Lock and Key

Everyone has their weak spot.  The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.

My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them. You know?

Not every thing's perfect, especially in the beginning. and its all right to have a little big of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble.

If you didn't always have to choose between turning away for good or rushing in deeper.

In the moments that it really counts, maybe it's enough - more than enough, even - just to be there.

The further you go, the more you have to be proud of.  At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with.  In the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters.  Just that you get there at all.

Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over.

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.

At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn't capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.

I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. "You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone."
Yeah," he said adding some cheese straws to the cart, "but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't."
I picked up a box of cheese straws, examining it. "Yeah," I said. "But it's not all about chance, either."

There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

I was only then, when I knew I was alone, at least for the moment, that I reached under my gown into the pocket of my dress. As I pulled out my key from the yellow house, which I'd kept on my bureau since the day Nate left, I traced the shape one last time before folding my hand tightly around it.
Behind me, Cora was calling again. My family was waiting. Looking down at the pond, all I could think was that it is an incredible thing, how a whole world can rise from what seems like nothing at all. I stepped closer to the edge, keeping my eyes on my reflection as I dropped the key into the water, where it landed with a splash. At first, the fish darted away, but as it began to sink they circled back, gathering around. Together, they followed it down, down until it was gone.


Still, there was also was something reassuring about working for Commercial, almost hopeful. Like things that were lost could be found again. As we drove away, I always tried to imagine what it would be like to open your door to find something you had given up on.

We both know the limits of this relationship. It's understood. And as long as we're both comfortablewith that, nobody get's hurt. It's basic.'

My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

Whenever something great happens, you're always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself.

You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take.

The night before, I'd offered up my hand. Now, if I held on, there was no telling what it was possible to recieve in return.

"Family," she announced.  "They're the people in your life you don't get to pick.  The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose."
"You're bound to them by blood," she continued, her voice flat.  "Which, you know, gives you that much more in common.  Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color.  It's like they're part of your blueprint.  If something's wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them."
I nodded and kept writing. "But," she said, "even though you're stuck with them, at the same time, they're also stuck with you.  So that's why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals.  Because they're the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end.  Like it or not."

"That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened - good, bad, or anywhere in between - it was always, if nothing else, all your own."

There's this other half of him I dont know of, its like he is trying it keep it a secret.... if he would just let me inside so I can help.

Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.

"And the rest is history," I said.
"Nah." He shook his head. "The rest is now."

"Don't I know it."

There comes a point when things are undeniable and can't be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.

A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.

You don't have to make things harder then they have to be just to prove a point.

There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?

We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.

The point," Ms. Conyers continued, "is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.

But sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something.

"You know? Conciseness is underrated"

It's never something huge that changes the everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the big picture.

Obviously it won't all run smoothly. But it's important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.

Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all.

"For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else."
"Really,' I said
"We're passive-aggressive people," she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. "Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common."

"To me," Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, "family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins."...

Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. "Huh," she said. "I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, just as you're getting pissed off at another."
"So it's an endless cycle," I said.
"I guess.' She took another sip. "Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about?"

She smiled, pulling the photo a little closer, and I wondered if I should ask her, too, the question for my project, get her definition. But as she ran a finger slowly across the faces, identifying each one, it occurred to me that maybe this was her answer. All those names, strung together like beads on a chain. Coming together, splitting apart, but still and always, a family.

Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

More than anyone in that room, I was aware of exactly the sort of person who did such a thing. What I hadn't realized until that very moment, though, was that it wasn't just my mother who was guilty of all these offenses. I'd told myself that everything I'd done in the weeks before and since she left was to make sure I would never be like her. But it was too late. All I had to do was look at the way I'd reacted to what Cora had told me that morning- taking off, getting wasted, letting myself be left alone in a strange place - to know I already was...
Perhaps I was just like my mother. But looking up at Cora's hand, I had to wonder whether it was possible that this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this wasn't already decided for me, and if maybe, just maybe, this was my one last chance to try and prove it. There was no way to know. There never is. But I reached out and took it anyway.

It was like those songs I'd heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When I got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn't make me love them any less. By then they were already part of me, woven into my consciousness memory.

You have to admit, it's kind of impressive.... Total commitment. You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?

Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you'd planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even just alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can. Maybe my sister and I shared more than we thought. We were both waiting and wishing for something we couldn't completely control: I wanted to be alone, and she the total opposite. It was weird, really, to have something so contrary in common. But at least it was something.

Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to remember to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning; there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.

After all with me and Marshall, it had never been about words or conversation, where there was too much to be risked or lost. Here, though, in the quiet pressed against each other, this felt familiar to me. And it was nice to let someone get close again, even if it was just for a little while.

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own.  Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd.  Or sheltered by it.  Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.

I was just stock in the middle, vague and undefined. It wasn't like I was some expert on the meaning of being supportive. Was it being loyal even against your better judgement? Or, like Olivia, was it making your displeasure known from the start, even when someone didn't want to hear it?

"You want me to give her a key?" the guy asked.
"I want you to give her a possibility," she told him, looking at my necklace again. "And that's what a key represents. An open door, a chance. You know?"

It wasn't so much that I was positive.  I just wasn't fully subscribing to such a negative way of thinking anymore.

How ballsy it was to just assume you know, with one glance, the things another person could live without.  As if it was the same for everyone, that simple.

Don't trust the natives, Olivia has told me, but I was already a step ahead of her.  I didn't trust anyone.  Not for directions, not for rides, and not for advice either.  Sure it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go.

"You know," I said to him. "Pining isn't attractive. On anyone. ... The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it."

Later, though, I wished I had spoken up, or at least tried to explain that once I knew Cora better than anyone. But that was a long time ago, back when she wasn't trying to save the whole world. Only me.

There were so many times during those years, though, as we moved from one house to another, that I would find myself thinking about my sister. Usually it was late at night, when I couldn't sleep, and I'd try to picture her in her dorm room forty-odd miles and a world away. I wondered if she was happy, what it was like out there. And if maybe, just maybe, she ever thought of me.

Was it really this easy, once you escaped, to just not care?

But it was important to simply be sought, even if you didn't ever want to be found.

But accepting help doesn't have to mean giving up control.

I just stood there, looking at her. My head was spinning, my mouth dry, and all I could think about was that I wanted to go someplace safe, someplace I could be alone and okay, and that this was impossible. My old life had changed and my new one was still in progress, altering by the second.

Sure, there was no guarantee any of these things would actually happen as he envisioned. But maybe that wasn't the point. It was the planning that counted, whether it ever came to fruition or not.

There was something striking about a single key. It was like a question waiting to be answered, a whole missing a half. Useless on its own, needing something else to be truly defined.

Sometimes. It was a good escape. Until, you know, it wasn't.

You just had to know where to look.

There were so many levels to the unknown, from safe to dangerous to outright nebulous, scariest of all.

Maybe I'd just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing

But the original was there as well - more jaded and rudimentary, functional rather than romantic. It fit not just the yellow house but another door, deep within my own heart. One that had been locked so tight for so long that I was afraid to even try it for fear of what might be on the other side

If this was my instinct talking, I didn't want to hear what it was saying.

How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you? I had no idea. More than ever, though, right then I had to believe the answer would just come to me.

"Even if you do make tons of new friends," I told him, "try not to forget where you came from, okay?"  

I hoped this was true. Even if it wasn't, all I could do was hand over what I could, with the hope of something in return. But of course, this was easier said than done.

If nothing else, now we knew where to find each other, even if only time would tell if either of us would ever come looking.  

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton

Deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often even funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all.

He murmured her name, tenderly taking her face in his hands.  "I love you," he said, his voice low and fervent.  "I love you with everything I am, everything I've been, and everything I hope to be."
"I love you with my past, and I love you for my future."  He bent forward and kissed her, once, softly, on the lips.  "I love you for the children we'll have and for the years we'll have together.  I love you for every one of my smiles, and even more, for every one of your smiles."

"Felicity," Mrs. Featherington interrupted, "why don't you tell Mr. Brdgerton about your watercolors?"
For the life of him, Colin couldn't imagine a less interesting topic (except maybe for Phillipa's watercolors), but he nonetheless turned to the youngest Featherington with a friendly smile and asked, "And how are your watercolors?"
But Felicity, bless her heart, gave him a rather friendly smile herself and said nothing but, "I imagine they're fine, thank you."

No one knows as well as I how much nonsense is printed in books.

She had been born for this man, and she had spent so many years trying to accept the fact that he had been born for someone else...

"You're in a rather odd mood today."
"I'm soaking wet, Eloise."
"No need to snap at me about it, I didn't force you to walk across town in the rain."
"It wasn't raining when I left,"
There was something about a sibling that brought out the eight-year-old in a body.
"I'm sure the sky was gray,"
Clearly, she had a bit of the eight-year-old in her as well.


Colin decided then and there that the female mind was a strange and incomprehensible organ - one which no man should even attempt to understand. There wasn't a woman alive who could go from point A to B without stopping at C, D, X, and 12 along the way.

  

The Note

What would you say to a loved one if you had only a few seconds to impart a last message? What language does love speak?
Some of you speak love with wine and roses. For other, "I love you," is best said by breakfast in bed, carefully set aside sport sections, or night out at the movies, complete with buttered popcorn.
Children spell love T-I-M-E. So, I think, do older folks.
Teenagers spell it T-R-U-S-T. Sometimes parents spell love N-O.
But no matter what the letters, the emotion beneath the wording must be tangible, demonstrable, and sincere.

And let me tell you - carrying sad memories will wear you out. You've got to put them down walk away. Do whatever you must to put emotional space between yourself and your past. That's the only way you're going to make it through.

But adolescence is a time of hurts.  

The Truth About Forever

: What you need, what you deserve, is a guy who adores you for what you are. Who doesn't see you as a project, but a prize. you know?

: But I'd long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They weren't guaranteed or promised. You were lucky, more than blessed, if you got a good-bye at all.

: We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.
That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then, as I ran with Wes into that bright sun, and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now.

: Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.

: Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. you get use to the weight, how it holds you in place.

: But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.

: That was the thing about being on the inside: the world was just going on, even when it seemed like time for you had stopped for good.

: But as I stood watching her, I realized how truly hard it was,really, to see someone you love change right before your eyes. Not only is it scary, it throws your balance off as well. This was how my mother felt, I realized, over the weeks I worked at Wish, as she began to not recognize me in small ways, day after day. It was no wonder she'd reacted by pulling me closer, forcibly narrowing my world back to fit insider her own. Even now, as I finally saw this as the truth it was, a part of me wishing my mother would stand up straight, take command, be back in control. But all I'd wanted when she was tugging me closer was to be able to prove to her that the changes in me were good ones, ones she'd understand if she only gave them a chance. I had that chance now. While it was scary, I was gong to take it.

: It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.

: Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.

: Like life isn't complicated enough. You should at least be able to follow the signs.

: The thing about Wes," Delia said to me, unwrapping another package of turkey, "is that he thinks he can fix anything. And if he can't fix it, he can at least do something with the pieces of what's broken. The way I see it," she continued, "is that some things are just meant to be the way they are. It's just that...I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is. But if everything was always smooth and perfect," she continued, "you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right.

: That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say.

: The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though: it wasn't empty as much as chosen. There's a entirely different feel to quiet when you're with some-one else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending.

: That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.


: "It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You just do it."

: I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.

: Life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it. it's like forever, always changing. for any of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count. What you have to decide is how you want your life to be. If your forever was ending tomorrow, is this how you'd want to have spent it?

: Never would forever, with all its meanings, be so clear and distinct as in the true, guaranteed end of the world.

: And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn't fall or fly. Instead I found myself back on the edge of the cliff, blinking, wondering if I'd ever jumped at all. It's not supposed to be like this.

: An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. It just feels that way.

: I knew that in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late again. I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.

: How weird was it that so many bits and pieces, all diverse, could make something whole. Something with potential. Perfect.

: But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.

: Your actions is like a raindrop; it falls into the pond making riffles and then its over...

: I got back in my car, starting the engine, then drove off. It wasn't until I pulled onto the highway that it all really sunk it, how temporary our friendship had been. We'd been on our breaks, after all, but it wasn't our relationships that were on pause: it was us. Now we were both in motion again, moving ahead. So what if there were questions left unanswered. Life went on. We knew that better than anyone.

: As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that means.

: But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back - leaving me astounded, amazed and most of all, alive.

: But it had happened. I had followed Delia's van that night, I had told Wes my Truths, I had stepped into his arms, showing him my raw, broken heart. I could pretend otherwise, pushing it out of sight and hopefully out of mind. But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance. I'd gotten one reaching out to grab Kristy's hand as she pulled me into the ambulance; another during the trip to the hospital that ended with seeing Avery born. Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential.

: You know what happens when someone dies?' Delia said suddenly, startling me a bit. I kept putting together my sandwich, though, not answering: I knew there was more. 'It's like, everything and everyone refracts, each person having a different reaction'


: 'When Wish died, it just knocked the wind out of me. Truly. It's like that stupid thing Bert and Wes do, the leaping out thing, trying to scare each other: it was the biggest gotcha in the world.' She looked down at the sandwiches. 'I'd just assumed she'd be okay. It had never occurd to me she might actually just be... gone. You know?'

:'And then she was,' Delia said, her hand on the bread bag. 'Gone. Gotcha. And suddenly I had these two boys to take care of, plus a newborn of my own. It was just this huge loss, this huge gap, you know'

: I envied Delia. At least she knew what she was up against. Maybe that's what you got when you stood over your grief, facing it finally. A sense of its depths, its area, the distance across, and the way over or around it, whichever you chose in the end.'

: She shook her head. 'Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn't appreciate and value you.'
'You said the other day life was long,' I shot back. 'Which is it?'
'It's both,' she said, shrugging. 'It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.'
'Nothing can be two opposite things at once,' I said. 'It's impossible.'
'No,' she replied, squeezing my hand,' what's impossible is that we actually think it could be anything other than that. Look, when I was in the hosptal, right after the accident, they thought I was going to die. I was really fucked up, big time.'
'Uh-huh,' Monica said, looking at her sister.
'Then,' Kristy continued, nodding at her, 'life was very short, literally. but now that I'm better it seems so long I have to squint to see even the edges of it. It's all in the view, Macy. That's what I mean about forever, too.

: It seemed like it was a choice I had already made. I'd spent the last year and a half with Jason, shaping my life to fit his, doing what I had to in order to make sure I had a place in his perfect world, where things made sense. But it hadn't worked.  'Listen,' Kristy said,' the truth is, nohing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody.' She looed at me hard, making sure I knew what she meant. I did. 'So don't be afraid. Be alive.'
But then, I couldn't imagine, after everything that had happened, how you could live and not constantly be worrying about the dangers all around you. Especially when you'd already gotten the scare of your life.
'It's the same thing,' I told her.
'What is?'
'Being afraid and being alive.'
'No,' she said slowly, and now it was as if she was speaking a language she knew at first I wouldn't understand, the very words, not to mention the concept, being foreign to me. 'Macy, no. It's not.'

: This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anything can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.

: I didn't pay atteniton to times or distance, instead focusing on how it felt just to be in motion, knowing it wasn't about the finish line but how I got there that mattered.

: This was just one night, one chance to vary and see where it took me.

: The fireflies were probably already out: maybe it wasn't just a season or a time but a whole world I'd forgotten. I'd never know until I stepped out into it. So I did.

: He was looking at me, just as I'd thought he would be, but like Bert's, his light was not what I expected. No pity, no sadness: nothing had changed. I realized all the times I'd felt people stare at me, their faces had been pictures, abstracts. None of them were mirrors, able to reflect back the expression I thought one I wore, the feelings only I felt.

: And I think she works so much because she can be in control of it, you know?' I said. She nodded. 'It makes her feel, I don't know, safe.'
'I can understand that,' Delia said softly. 'Losing someone can make you feel very out of control. Totally so.'
I know,' I said. 'But it's not really fair. Like, after my dad died, I wanted to be okay for her. So I was. Even when I had to fake it. But now, when I really do feel okay, she's not happy with me. Because I'm not perfect anymore.'
'Grieving doesn't make you imperfect,' Delia said quietly, as Bert came back out to the van, adjusting one of the carts inside. 'It makes you human. We all deal with things differently.'

: I listened for the voice I knew so well, the one I always heard at the beginning. 'Good girl, Macy! You're doing great! You know the first steps are the hardest part!
They were. Sometimes I felt so out of sync, it was all  could do not to quit after a few strides. But I kept on, as I did now. I had to, to get to the next part, this part, where I finally caught up with Wes, my shadow aligning itself with his, an he turned to look at me, pushing his hair our of his eyes.

: But she wouldn't. I knew that already. My mother and I had an understanding: we worked together to be as much in control of our shared world as possible. I was supposed to be her other half, carrying my share of the weight. In the last few weeks, I'd tried to shed it, and doing so sent everything off kilter. So of course she would pull me tighter, keeping me in my place, because doing so meant she would always be sure, somehow, of her own.

: Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.

: Fine...a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.

: I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.

: The choices you make now, the people you surround yourself with, they all have the potential to affect your life, even who you are, forever.

: When you have lost hope, you lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.

: I'd chosen instead to just change my route, go miles out of the way, as if avoiding it would make it go away once and for all.

: It's nice to have options even if you can't take them.

: All I'd wanted for so long was for someone to explain everything that had happened to me in this same way. To label it neatly on a page: this leads to this leads to this.

: It was becoming clear to me that I shouldn't bother to get too attached to anything. Turn your back and you lose it. Just like that.

: None of it meant anything, and all of it was important.

: When you had to do something, you had to do it. And eventually, if you were lucky, you did it well.

: This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spoke aloud. I should have been with him; she should have left him alone.

: Until now, this moment, as our eyes met. If there was a way to recognize something you'd never seen but still knew by heart, I felt it as I looked at his face. Finally, someone understood.

: I knew that in the last few minutes everything had changed. I'd tried to hold myself apart, showing only what I wanted, doling out bits and pieces of who I was. But that only works for so long. Eventually, even the smallest fragments can't help but make a whole.

: I knew Kristy was probably exacting the revenge she thought I was due, while Delia moved right behind her, making apologies and smoothing rough edges. Monica was most likely following her own path, either oblivious or deeply emotionally invested, depending on what you believed, while Wes worked the perimeter, always keeping an eye on everything. There was a whole other world out there, the Talbots' world, where I didn't belong now, if I ever had. But it was okay not to fit in everywhere, as long as you did somewhere. So I picked up my tray, careful to keep it level, and pushed through the door to join my friends.

: "You're a rule person," he said.
"My sister was a cheater. It sort of became necessary."
"She cheated at this game?"
"She cheated ateverything ," I said. "When we played Monopoly, she always insisted on being banker, then helped herself to multiple loans and 'service fees' for every real estate transaction. I was, like, ten or eleven before I played at someone else's house and they told me you couldn't do that."
He laughed, the sound seeming loud in all the quiet. I felt myself smiling, remembering.
"During staring contests," I said, "she always blinked. Always . But then she'd swear up and down she hadn't, and make you go again, and again. And when we played Truth, she lied. Blatantly.

: "No," I snapped. "I mean, no. I'm answering. I'm just collecting my response."
Another few seconds passed.
"Is there a time limit for this?" he asked.

: I shot him a look. "Just wondering. There was no way to take the story back, folding it neatly into the place I'd kept it all this time. No matter what else happened, from here on out, I would always remember Wes, because with this telling, he'd become part of that story, of my story, too.

: Once, she'd been a pro at decompressing, loved to sit on the back deck of the beach house in one of our splintery Adirondack chairs for hours at a time, staring at the ocean. She never had a book or the paper or anything else to distract her. Just the horizon, but it kept her attention, her gaze unwavering. Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about being out there, the world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and out.

: When he first put his arms around me, it was tentative, like maybe he expected I'd pull away. When I didn't, he moved in closer, his hands smoothing over my shoulders, and in my mind I saw myself retreating a million times when people tried to do this same thing: my sister or my mother, pulling back and into myself, tucking everything out of sight, where only I knew where to find it. This time, though, I gave in. I let Wes pull me against him, pressing my head against his chest, where I could feel his heart beating, steady and true.

: For a second none of us said anything, and I wondered if, in the end, this is how all disputes are settled, with a shared silence as things become equal. You take something from me, I take something from you. We all want balance, one way or another.

: During the long stretches of quiet two-lane highway, with the sun setting in the distance, it was somehow easier to say things aloud, and regardless of what was said, we just kept moving toward that horizon.

: "In Truth," I said, "there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth."
"How do you win?" he asked.
"That," I said, "Is such a boy question."

: No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood. If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.

Slightly Tempted

"Ah, but dreams cannot be captured with promises," he said. "Like water, they elude our grasp. But water is the staff of life. I believe your dream will come true if only because you will not compromise on it and let it go too lightly."

"It was strange how the heart clung to hope even when there was no reasonable basis for it, Morgan found. And how life went on."

"It was the challenge of life too, was it not? People could never be fully understood. They were ever changing, different people at different times and under different circumstances and influences. And always growing, always creating themselves anew.
How impossible it was to know another human being.
How impossible to know even oneself."

Handle With Care

-) That's what happens to dreams, life gets in the way.

-) All any of us wanted, really, was to know that we counted. That someone else's life would not have been as rich without us here.

-) I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why I was hurting.

-) Things that break - be they bones, hearts, or promises - can be put back together but will never really be whole.

-) Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was

-) Parents aren't the people you come from.  They're the people you want to be, when you grow up

-) I sat between my mother and my father, watching strangers on TV carry in Shaker rockers and dusty paintings and ancient beer tankards and cranberry glass dishes; people and their hidden treasures, who had to be told by experts that they'd taken something incredibly precious for granted.

-) People ask all the time how I'm doing, but the truth is, they don't really want to know.

-) When you showed someone how you felt, it was fesh and honest. Whe you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. Those three words were what everyone used.

-) When you love someone, you say their name different.  Like it's safe inside your mouth.

-) Until then I never understood why you didn't cry, even though it hurt: there are kinds of pain you couldn't speak out loud.

-) It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it.

-) I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems.

-) All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.

-) People always say that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters. But that's not true, is it? You know, and I know, that when you love someone, everything in the world matters a little bit more.

-) Families were never what you wanted them to be. We all wanted what we couldn't have: the perfect child, the doting husband, the mother who wouldn't let go. We live in our grown-up dollhouses completely unaware that, at any moment, a hand might come in and change around everything we'd become accustomed to.

-) What looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.

-) Just because you didn't put a name to something did not mean it wasn't there.

-) Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.

-) What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn't starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn't enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand.

-) Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.

-) When it comes to memories, the good and the bad never balance.

-) A dutiful mother is someone who follows every step her child makes...And a good mother is someone whose child wants to follow her.

-) It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from?

-) Maybe I was naive to think that silence was implicit complacence, instead of a festering question. Maybe I was silly to believe that friends owed each other anything.

-) I had always been suspicious of women who described the dissolution of their marriages as something that happened overnight. How could you not know?  I'd thought. How could you miss all those signs?  Well, let me tell you how: you were so busy putting out a fire directly in front of you that you were completely oblivious to the inferno raging at your back.

-) Maybe that's what we do to the people we love: take shots in the dark and realize too late we've wounded the people we're trying to protect.

-) Even though it hurt, there are kinds of pain you couldn't speak out loud.

-) Things break all the time.  Glass and dishes and fingernails.  Cars and contracts and potato chips.  You can break a record, a horse, a dollar.  You can break the ice.  There are coffee breaks and lunch breaks and prison breaks.  Day breaks, waves break, voices break.  Chains can be broken.  So can silence, and fever... promises break.  Hearts break.

-) Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deeds, on the one hand, I had a woman who had chosen to give me up; on the other, I had a woman who'd sat up with me at night when I was sick as a child, who'd cried with me over boyfriends, who'd clapped fiercely at my law school graduation. Which acts made you more of a mother?
Both, I realized. Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.

-) I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.

-) Memory is like plaster: peel it back and you just might find a completely different picture.

-) Was there a language of loss? Did everyone who suffered speak a different dialect?

-) Words got in the way. The things we felt the hardest--like what it was like to have a boy touch you as if you were made of light, or what it meant to be the only person in the room who wasn't noticed--weren't sentences; they were knots in the wood of our bodies, places where our blood flowed backward.

-) If you asked me, not that anyone ever did, the only words worth saying were I'm sorry.

-) What you didn't tell someone was just as debilitating as what you did.

-) But I had forgotten, that the best defense is a good offense.

-) It was one thing to sacrifice your own life for someone else's. It was another thing entirely to bring into the mix a third party - a third party who knew you, who trusted you implicitly.

-)  I've written and rewritten this, read and reread it. It's not perfect, and neither am I. But I'm finally brave, and I'd like to think that maybe I inherited that from you.

-) If I didn't ask for anything, I didn't have to hear them say no.

-) Part of growing up was distancing yourself from your mother.

-) "Willow," I said slowly. "Your mother didn't ask you to pay for that wheel."
"No, but if it doesn't cost her any extra, she won't have to get rid of me."

-) It didn't matter to me how that happened - just as long as it did. I wasn't thinking of who I might hurt, only who I could rescue.

-) What I could never puzzle out, however, was how you'd get from where you are to where you might be one day - until I was given the materials to make a bridge. Too late I learned that that bridge was made of thorns, that it might not be strong enough to hold us all.

-) Maybe that makes me a pessimist, maybe it makes me a realist. Or maybe it just makes me a mother.

-) That world of yours, its so gray you can't see the landmarks anymore. You don't know where you are headed.

-) ...and the very act of remembering involves choosing word and phrases and images.

-) If you chose to stop  a loved one's suffering - either before it began or during the process - was that murder, or mercy?

-) A lot of zeroes didn't mean anything, really, except security.

-) There is no cosmic scale on which you can weigh your actions; you learn too late what choices ruin the fragile balance.

-) But love wasn't about sacrifice, and it wasn't about falling short of someone' expectations. By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redeemed perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them.

-) I hated that I had to pretend I knew, when in reality, it had already faded, like a rose you press into a distionary in the Qs, hoping you can call back summer at any time, but then in December it's nothing more than crumbling, brown bits of dried flower.

The Kite Runner

> It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...
> I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.
> It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.
> People say that eyes are windows to the soul.
> Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything.
> Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.
> I didn't remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.
> The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.
> As far as I know, he never asked where she had been or why she had left and she never told. I guess some stories do not need telling.
> Yes, hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price?
> There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.
> Was there happiness at the end [of the movie], they wanted to know.
If someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab, and me ends with happiness, I wouldn't know what to say.
Does anybody's?
After all, life is not a Hindi movie. Zendagi migzara, Afghans like to say: Life goes on, undmindful of beginning, en, kamyab, nah-kam, crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis.
> I brought Hassan/s son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.
> That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.
> A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.  

Aisheteruz Baby

If I grow up will the loneliness go away? When will I stop being lonely?