Ava Quotes

The truth is, honey, I've enjoyed my life. I've had a hell of a good time.

Just tell me one thing before you leave, Ava.” His voice prickles at my senses… His face is serious, but still stunning. “How loud do you think you’ll scream when I fuck you?

You don’t have to work overtime to get people to love you, Ava. Love isn’t earned, it’s given.

I think a lot of people want to be someone, but we are scared that if we try, we won't be as good as everyone imagines we could be.

Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people.

Love makes us such fools.

And maybe what growing up really means is knowing that you don't have to be just a character, going whichever way the story says. It's knowing you could be the author instead.

Just because love don't look the way you think it should, don't mean you don't have it.

You can be noble and brave and beautiful and still find yourself falling.

Ava, the sexual tension batting between you and that man was so fucking super charged, even I was horny!

Ava, you should know that once I’ve had you, you’re mine.

Ava, why the fuck am I handcuffed to the bed?

When we are in love, we are both completely in danger and completely saved.

I was a woman when it was convenient to blame me, and a girl when they wanted to use me.

I know I wrote letters to people with no address on this earth, I know that you are dead. But I hear you. I hear all of you. We were here. Our lives matter.

Ava, you missed it when it happened so I’ll clue you in. Last night, around the time you fell asleep against me, you became mine.

But we aren't transparent. If we want someone to know us, we have to tell them stuff.

I loved you before, Ava. Let me love you still.

And that might just be the root of the problem: we're all afraid of each other, wings or no wings.

There's more to life than being a passenger.

Love, as most know, follows its own timeline. Disregarding our intentions or well rehearsed plans.

i love reading because it is fun

Truth is beautiful, no matter what the truth is. Even if it's scary or bad. It is beauty simply because it's true. And truth is bright. Truth makes you more you.

You think you know someone, but that person always changes, and you keep changing, too. I understood it suddenly, how that’s what being alive means. Our own invisible plates shifting inside of our bodies, beginning to align into the people we are going to become.

My beautiful girl. My defiant temptress. My lady. My angel. My Ava.

That was the cruelest irony: the more you did to save yourself, the less you became a person worth saving.

There are a lot of human experiences that challenge the limits of our language,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons that we have poetry.

Everything is so much more bearable with you around, Ava.

How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.

We must discuss, then, the relationship between women and water. When men fall into the sea, they drown. When women meet the water, they transform. It becomes vital to ask: is this a metamorphosis, or a homecoming?

Why would you be given wings if you weren't meant to fly?

When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.

I will love you to ruination.

Oh my goodness, Luke’s massaging your arm! Isn’t that sweet? Good Ava trilled in my ear. Jump him! Rip his pants off! Bad Ava shouted in my other ear.

She laughed for her wasted, difficult life that never had to be wasted or difficult in the first place.

You’ll always need me, Ava. I’m going to make sure of it. Now, let’s see if we can fuck some sense into you.

I found it ironic that I should be blessed with wings and yet feel so constrained, so trapped. It was because of my condition, I believe, that I noticed life's ironies a bit more often than the average person. I collected them: how love arrived when you least expected it, how someone who said he didn't want to hurt you eventually would.

What I told you about saving people isn't true. You might think it is, because you might want someone else to save you, or you might want to save someone so badly. But no one else can save you, not really. Not from yourself. [...] You fall asleep in the foothills, and the wolf comes down from the mountains. And you hope someone will wake you up. Or chase it off. Or shoot it dead. But when you realize that the wolf is inside you, that's when you know. You can't run from it. And no one who loves you can kill the wolf, because it's part of you. They see your face on it. And they won't fire the shot.

she walked like she belonged in a better world,

I need to have all of you, Ava. Say I can have all of you.” … “Take me.” I say quietly against his lips.’ “Oh, I will.

She spent her days trying to forget the sound of his voice, and her nights trying to remember.

I hate you,” I declared. “You don’t.” “I do.” “Okay, maybe whoever this new Ava is does but she’s a bitch and I don’t give a fuck if she hates me. The old Ava doesn’t hate me and she’s in there somewhere, I saw her five minutes ago and that’s who I'm keeping safe.

Where you're concerned, I'll try my best, Ava. I already told you, I've waited too long for you. You're my little piece of heaven. Nothing will rob you from me. Nothing.

May, I love you with everything I am. For so long, I just wanted to be like you. But I had to figure out that I am someone too, and now I can carry you, your heart with mine, everywhere I go.

Sex isn't all that important, but it is when you love someone very much.

Nirvana means freedom. Freedom from suffering. I guess some people would say that death is just that. So, congratulations on being free, I guess. The rest of us are still here, grappling with all that's been torn up.

Ava's not my date. I came stag." "Stag. You. Why?" "So my date wouldn't get offended when I wanted to dance with you," he says.

Life’s too short, I’m through talkin’. This is happening, we both know it, we both feel it and you even admitted it. Ava Babe, stop fighting it.

I wish you could tell me where you are now. I mean, I know you’re dead, but I think there must be something in a human being that can’t just disappear. It’s dark out. You’re out there. Somewhere, somewhere. I’d like to let you in.

Do you feel that?’ He flattens my palms on his chest and holds them there firmly. ‘It was made to love you, Ava. For too long it was useless, redundant, not required. Now it’s gone into overdrive. It swells with happiness when I look at you. It splinters with pain when we fight. And it beats wildly when I make love to you. Maybe I go overboard with my love, but that’s never going to change. I’ll love you this fiercely until the day I die, baby. Children or not.

I mean, words can't be good enough for a lot of things. But, you know, I guess we have to try.

It's sad when everyone knows you, but no one knows you.

Sometimes when we say things, we hear silence. Or only echoes. Like screaming from inside. And that’s really lonely. But that only happens when we weren’t really listening. It means we weren’t ready to listen yet. Because every time we speak, there is a voice. There is the world that answers back.

Watch your mouth,’ he cautions me. ‘I’ve told you before, Ava. I’ll do whatever it takes.’ ‘For what?’ My voice is barely a whisper. ‘To keep you

There was an intimacy to all violence, she supposed. The better you knew someone, the more terribly you could hurt them.

We’re not conventional, baby. But we’re special. What we have is really special. You belong to me, and I belong to you. It just is. It’s not natural for us to be apart, Ava.

He shakes his head. ‘You’re different. I told you, Ava, I’ll trample anyone who tries to get in my way. Even you.

I'll die loving you, Ava.

I know that it can be hard to believe that someone loves you if you are afraid of being yourself, or if you are not exactly sure who you are. It can be hard to believe that someone won't leave.

The sex is just sex. I can't get close enough to you. The control is because I'm frightened to death that something will happen to you...that you'll be taken away from me. I've waited too long for you, Ava. I'll do anything to keep you safe. I've lived a life with little control or care. Believe me, I need you..please...please don't leave me.

I will love you to ruination,” the Fairy King said, brushing a strand of golden hair from my cheek. “Yours or mine?” I asked. The Fairy King did not answer.

I've been thinking lately about immortality. What it means to be remembered, what I want to be remembered for, certain questions concerning memory and fame. I love watching old movies. I watch the faces of long-dead actors on the screen, and I think about how they'll never truly die. I know that's a cliché but it happens to be true. Not just the famous ones who everyone knows, the Clark Gables, the Ava Gardners, but the bit players, the maid carrying the tray, the butler, the cowboys in the bar, the third girl from the left in the nightclub. They're all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we're seen, that's not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.

So maybe when we can say things, when we can write the words, when we can express how it feels, we aren’t so helpless.

A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel, or not to feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to -- letting a person be what he really is.

I think that by beauty, you don't just mean something that's pretty. You mean something that makes us human.

To many, I was myth incarnate, the embodiment of a most superb legend, a fairy tale. Some considered me a monster, a mutation. To my great misfortune, I was once mistaken for an angel. To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost. But I knew the truth—deep down, I always did. I was just a girl.

But if fairies and monsters were real, so were the women who defeated them.

I wish to live to 150 years old, but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.

When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place.

How could she just leave me here to live without her? I miss her so much. I love her. I want her to grow up and become who she was meant to be. I wanted her to grow up with me.

I need you to let me do all of those things, Ava. I need you to let me look after you forever.

Fate. As a child, that word was often my only companion. It whispered to me from dark corners during lonely nights. It was the song of the birds in spring and the call of the wind through bare branches on a cold winter afternoon. Fate. Both my anguish and my solace. My escort and my cage.

I demoted him from The Best Man Ever to just The Best Man I’d Ever Met. Superman would have charged out (hell, he’d have flown) to get Lois Lane cookies. I was pretty sure of it.

You don't have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too.

Ava screamed again, and my heart tripped. I almost wished there were an intruder so I had something physical to fight.

I had to soften him up because, for whatever reason, all the Rock Chicks had an alternate Hot Bunch guy, Indy's was Eddie. Roxie's was Vance. Jules was Luke. Ava's was Lee. Mine was Mace.

We do things sometimes because we feel so much inside of us, and we don’t notice how it affects somebody else.

It began as all things did: a girl on the shore, terrified and desirous.

Go fuck yourself," I replied, always the lady. "I'm staying here.

When Ava turned away, Jules leaned in and whispered, “He’s totally whipped. Watch.” She raised her voice to a panicked level. “Oh my God! Ava, are you bleeding?” Alex’s head snapped up. Less than five seconds later, he ended his call and crossed the room to a confused-looking Ava, whose hand froze halfway to the scones on the table. “I’m fine,” Ava said as Alex searched her for injuries. She glared at Jules. “What did I just say?” “I can’t help it.” Jules’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s so much fun. It’s like playing with a windup toy.” “Until the toy comes alive and kills you,” Stella murmured loud enough for everyone to hear. Alex stared at Jules with displeasure scrawled all over his face. His features were so perfect it was a little unnerving, like seeing a carefully sculpted statue come to life. Some people were into that, but I preferred men with a little more grit. Give me scars and a nose that was slightly crooked from being broken too many times over perfection. “Pray you and Ava stay friends forever,” Alex said, icy enough to elicit a rash of goosebumps on my arms.

Ava, when a man gets a calculator out at the end of a meal to work out what you owe. It's usually not a good sign.

Was it hard?” I ask. “Letting go?” “Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn’t real.” I gulp. “Can I ask how you did it?” “I just decided, Ava. That’s all. I just decided.

I feel like I am drowning in memories. Everything is too bright.

By this point Viviane Lavender had loved Jack Griffith for twelve years, which was far more than half of her life. If she thought of her love as a commodity and were to, say, eat it, it would fill 4,745 cherry pies. If she were to preserve it, she would need 23,725 glass jars and labels and a basement spanning the length of Pinnacle Lane. If she were to drink it, she'd drown.

The thing about traditions is that they hold up the shape of your memory.

That fact filled Gabe with so much hope that he grew another two inches just to have enough room to hold it all.

Never Ava.All I need is you and for you to need me. Nothing else." Jesse

To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost.

You learned right away that applause sounds like love.

I grasped her chin and angled her face toward mine. “Tell me who or what I need to kill,” I growled. “What happened at your father’s house?” “I told you, nothing. It was just the lake.” Ava eked out a wobbly smile. “You can’t kill a lake.” “I’ll drain every fucking lake and ocean in the world if I have to.” A tiny crystal tear slipped from her eye. “Alex…” “I mean it.” I rubbed the tear away with my thumb. My heart raged in my chest, a snarling beast furious at the sight of her distress and the thought there was something in the world that would dare hurt her.

What are you gonna do?” I whispered. “I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to protect Luke while he does whatever the fuck he wants to do.

Did you pay for the repairs on my Range Rover?” I asked him. “Yeah.” “Why?” “Why not?” he answered. I felt my hold on my temper slip. “Luke, it’s my car.” “Ava, you’re my woman.” I ignored the melty feeling that gave me too. “So?” “So you’re my woman, I take care of you.” “Luke – “ “This isn’t up for discussion.” “It sure as hell is!” “I’m thinkin’, as payback for the hickey, I want you in that pink teddy thing tonight.” Was he for real? “Luke!” “Later.” Disconnect. Argh!

You're not just one thing. Survival is something you do not something you are. You're brave and brilliant. You're the most real, full person I've ever met.

I’m trying to save you, Ava,” he said… “From what?” I refused to look at him, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. “From me.” I didn’t respond, because how was I supposed to tell the man determined to save me that I didn’t want to be saved?

If beauty is truth, and truth is beauty, they are defined by each other, so how do we know the meaning of either?

Those born under Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain.

I think it’s like when you lose something so close to you, it’s like losing yourself. That’s why at the end, it’s hard for her to write even. She can hardly remember how. Because she barely knows what she is anymore.

The universe is bigger than anything that can fit into your mind.

Cards on the table, Ava. No fucking about, no more drunken confessions and no more holding out on me, Do you understand?

And that might just be the root of the problem: we’re all afraid of each other.

She found that she did not mind losing the previous moment, for this one was just as lovely.

My eldest sister was right; I would smile blithely if someone tried to saw off my leg. But no one ever told me I was allowed to scream

It was an eternal feeling, this sense of being unwelcome. No matter where she was, Effy was always afraid she was not wanted.

We are each weird in a different way, but together, that's actually normal.

God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't.

I can’t answer that, Ava, because I’ve never wanted anything enough to pursue it so relentlessly. Not like I wanted you.

You should always be kind to people, Ava. You never know what sorrows they’re carrying around.

What are you and Henry going to do tonight anyway?" "My secret," I said, and when I walked around to see the look on her face, I rolled my eyes. "Not that. What are you and Xander going to do?" "That." She gave me an impish look, and I scowled. "What? I'm dead. It's not like it matters anymore.

I almost forgot how gorgeous Adonis is," she [Ava] said, "We should have made him one of us." She [Ava] wouldn't have gotten any argument out of me, but a strange sound escaped from James, almost like he was growling. "And have to endure another narcissistic blond running around? No, thank you.

Dangers lurk around every corner for the strange.

Ava, one day I'm gonna shove a bar of soap in your mouth.

Ava, you're asking me not to touch you. That goes against all of my instincts.

Ava is like a praying mantis on crack. She will not only chew off his head after she has sex with him, she will have sex with his headless body afterwards and then light it on fire.

Nothing is worse than when someone who's supposed to love you just leaves.

Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn't and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don't think they understood me.

You know when you think you know someone? More than anyone in the world? You know you know them, because you've seen them, like, for real. And then you reach out, and suddenly they are just... gone. You though you belonged together. You thought they were yours, but they're not. You want to protect them, but you can't.

The first of many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man's hands after hours spent in a wood shop.

Ava, you're driving like Miss Daisy. Will you put your foot down?

I couldn't find you. I thought you had left. I had a hundred heart attacks in ten minutes, Ava. Why were you in the other bedroom?

Judy, I read that you said your first memory was music. Music that fills up a home. And one day, suddenly the music could escape through a window. For the rest of your life, you had to chase it.

Ever, can't you just relax and enjoy the view? When was the last time you were in Paris anyway?" "Never. I've never been to Paris. And I hate to break it to you, Ava, but this—is not Paris. This is like some cranked up Disney version of Paris. Like, you've taken a pile of travel brochures and French postcards, and scenes from that adorable cartoon movie Ratatouille, mixed them all together and voila, created this.

I have only one rule in acting--trust the director, and give him heart and soul.

A romance is a belief in the impossible: that anything ends happily.

I’m having Ava withdrawal.’ I melt a little on a sigh. He can be so domineering, bossy and unreasonable, and in the next breath, completely soppy and lovely.

Get this into your head Ava, I'm not gonna do anything to fuck it up between us but I'm also not gonna let you do anything to fuck it up either.

It was the song of the birds in spring and the call of the wind through bare branches on a cold winter afternoon. Fate. Both my anguish and my solace. My escort and my cage.

I have traveled through continents, languages, and time trying to understand all that I am and all that has made me such.

She was tired, tired of trying so hard for something she didn’t even want.

She is the glorious reincarnation of every woman ever loved.

All that talk of quiet obedience is for their benefit, not yours. They don't have to go to the effort of striking you down if you're already on your knees.

If a story repeated itself so many times over, building itself up brick by brick, did it eventually become the truth? A house with no doors and no windows, offering no escape.

Effy found herself half in love with the Fairy King sometimes, too. The tender belly of his cruelty made her heart flutter. There was an intimacy to all violence, she supposed. The better you knew someone, the more terribly you could hurt them.

We need to boil water. We need clean towels,” Ava announced, following too. “She ain’t birthin’ no baby! She’s got a gunshot wound!” Indy shouted. “I know that!” Ava shouted back. “But we need a sterile environment.

Hell, I suppose if you stick around long enough they have to say something nice about you.

She struggled to distinguish between signs she received from the universe and those she conjured up in her head.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

You don't have to love something in order to devote yourself to it.

Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn't guaranteed. You can lose that too, slowly, like water eating away at stone.

Effy hated that she couldn’t tell right from wrong, safe from unsafe. Her fear had transfigured the entire world. Looking at anything was like trying to glimpse a reflection in a broken mirror, all of it warped and shattered and strange.

I’m going to fuck you until you’re seeing stars, Ava.” His voice is harsh as he grinds his hips against me. I whimper. “You won’t be going to work tomorrow because you won’t be able to walk. Get in the car.

Calm down, man, the wedding isn’t off,” Luke announced. “It is,” Ava retorted angrily, whirling on her man. “It isn’t,” Luke replied calmly, staring down his nose at his woman. “Are you going to dance with me?” she asked. “Vertically?” he asked back, and I pressed my lips together in order not to laugh. “Yes!” she snapped. “Yeah, baby,” he said. “I’ll dance with you vertically, in the bathroom on the plane on the way to Bermuda.

the ghosts in the house are ours, and I just want to be with them.

She didn't see it because when it came to love, she saw what she wanted to see.

Sometimes we want our bodies to do a better job of showing the things that hurt us, the stories we keep hidden inside of us.

Love is a fire that cannot burn alone

I wish I had fought.” Effy surprised herself by saying it. The words had leaped out of her throat, unbidden. “I know I beat him in the end, but for so many years all I could do was run and hide. I just sat there and let the water pour in around me. I didn’t know that I could fight back. I didn’t know how to do anything but wait to drown.” “Oh no, Effy. That’s not what I meant at all. You don’t have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too.

Water finds its way through the smallest spaces and the narrowest cracks. Where the bone meets sinew, where the skin is split. It is treacherous and loving. You can die as easily of thirst as you can of drowning.

Do you feel that?’ He flattens my palms on his chest and holds them there firmly. ‘It was made to love you, Ava. For too long it was useless, redundant, not required. Now it’s gone into overdrive. It swells with happiness when I look at you. It splinters with pain when we fight. And it beats wildly when I make love to you.

That’s fucking bullshit. I know she’s here.” I ditched the softer approach. “Step aside, Ava, or I’ll—” “Careful how you finish that sentence, Harper.” Alex appeared beside his fiancée, his eyes like chips of jade-colored ice as they roved over my disheveled appearance.

That was the truth at the very center of everything, the truth she had tried her whole life to evade: there were no fairies, no magic, and the world was just ordinary and cruel.

What is a mermaid but a woman half-drowned, What a selkie but an unwilling wife, What a tale but a sea-net, snatching up both From the gentle tumult of dark waves?

No matter the road you take, it doesn’t matter if it’s beautiful or ugly, hard or smooth, paved or pitted with ruts—it’s your road to take. What matters is how it ends.

That things are only beautiful because they don't last- Full moons, flowers in bloom, you.

I will love you to ruination." "Whose ruination? Your's or mine?" You did not answer and I still wonder.

Can a person who has been brought up in the heart of a thick dark forest, where one has to beat a path through multiple layers of trees just to take a letter to the post office, have any conception of what it’s like to spend one’s entire childhood waiting for a single tree to grow?

To think Viviane was beautiful required a certain acquired taste. It was the kind of beauty perceived only through the eyes of love.

It was a world full of feelings that I didn’t have words for yet.

If it is a choice between drowning in the same river that has dragged me down a thousand times or walking into a pit of fire that had never burned me once, I will choose the flames and learn to bear it.

I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.

He had loved nothing more than the truth, and she had loved nothing more than her imagined world. Somehow, in spite of that, they had found each other.

When you have to face up to the fact that marriage to the man you love is really over, that's very tough, sheer agony. In that kind of harrowing situation, I always go away and cut myself off from the world. Also, I sober up immediately when there is genuine bad news in my life; I never face it with alcohol in my brain. I just rented a house in Palm Springs and sat there and just suffered for a couple of weeks. I suffered there until I was strong enough to face it.

I met someone.' And the leaves fell from the trees, landing to float in the calm black waters.

If there is anyone I would damn my soul for,” Gáspár says, “it would be you.

the woman is rain, and when she falls, she is a monsoon. to love her is to drown.

Stories are supposed to live longer than people.

There are still Ava Maddoxes to find and sets to create and girls to kiss and colleges to attend. It's possible that someday I will hear a patsy Cline song and the heartbreak will barely register. It will be some distant, buried feeling. I won't remember how much it once hurt.

There are a lot of human experiences that challenge the limits of our language,

some people are so deep you fall into them and you never stop falling.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy. But on Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be

When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.

Sometimes your music sounds like there's too much inside of you. Maybe even you couldn't get it all out. Maybe that's why you died. Like you exploded from the inside.

I think it's like when you lose something so close to you, it's like losing yourself.

I almost laughed. “You would rather me eat your heart than look away in disgust?” “Of course,” he breathed. “Every time.

Why do you think that’s the most profound thing for a person? It’s both at once. When we are in love, we are both completely in danger and completely saved.

Scars serve as medals of honor, and the strongest hearts have the most.

Help the others believe, Serafina. Help Ling believe she can break through the silences. Help Neela believe her greatest power comes from within, not without. Help Becca believe the warmest fire is the one that's shared. Help Ava believe the gods did know what they were doing. That's what a leader does—she inspires other to believe in themselves.

For a very long time, Viviane and Jack lived in that world people inhabit before love. Some people called that place friendship; others called it confusing. Viviane found it a pleasant place with an altitude that only occasionally made her nauseous.

Do you think that everyone gets to be a star like that? Do you think that everyone gets to be seen? Gets to be loved? Gets to glow? They don't. They don't get to do it like you did. They don't get to be as beautiful as you were. And you just wanted to burn up.

I wanted you, too. For so long. It was terrible. Sometimes I could barely eat- sorry, I know that sounds like the strangest thing. But for days I didn't feel hungry at all. I was... occupied. You took away all the other wanting from me.

I want to remember it all, the good times and the bad times, the late nights, the boozing, the dancing into dawns, and all the great and not-so-great people I met and loved in those years…

When you set an intention, you can create transformation.

Because once you're afraid of one thing, you can get scared of a lot of stuff.

I hate cheating. I won’t put up with it. I don’t do it myself.

Years later the lights of the growing city would erase the stars from the sky, but back then they shone through the branches like jailed fireflies.

Where you’re concerned, I’ll try my best, Ava. I already told you, I’ve waited too long for you. You’re my little piece of heaven. Nothing will rob you from me. Nothing.’ He presses his lips to mine to seal his declaration. ‘As long as I have you, I have purpose and reason. That is why I won’t be drinking and that is why I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. Understand?

Then I said, “Matt’s got a big mouth.” “They all got big mouths, girl, learn that quick. These boys talk more than a pack of women. I lost fifty bucks on you.” I was stunned speechless again, this time it didn’t last as long. “What?” “See, Lee nailed Indy the first night they were together. Not nailed her nailed her but she was in his bed. Eddie, with Jet, it took a few days. Hank and Roxie, like, a day. Vance, like three, but Jules was a virgin and he had to interrupt the festivities once to go out and shoot someone.” I was blinking rapidly and feeling kind of faint at the amount and sensitivity of information Shirleen was imparting, not to mention what it might mean to me. “So we had a pool. Everyone threw down money on when they thought Luke would nail you. Mace won five hundred dollars.” Ho-ly crap. “So,” she went on. “Did he nail you nail you or did you two just sleep?” For some reason, I answered her unbelievably nosy question. “We just slept.” “New pool!” she shouted.

Maybe when we can tell the stories, however bad they are, we don't belong to them anymore. They become ours. And maybe what growing up really means is knowing that you don't have to just be a character, going whichever way the story says. It's knowing that you could be the author instead.

Alex stared at me with an uncharacteristic glint of disbelief in his eyes. “What?” “Ninety-nine percent of people in this world are idiots,” he said. “I regret to inform you that you’re one of them.” My brows snapped together. “I’m convinced you don’t actually want to be my friend again.” Where was the ass kissing? The flattery? He gave up his company and flew to fucking London for Ava, but I couldn’t get so much as a sympathetic that sucks, man? Talk about getting the short end of the grovel stick.

Death just seems to follow some of us, don't it? Death's been following me for years. It's easy to spot your own kind. That kind of sorrow you can't just wash away; it sticks to you. And people, they can tell. They can feel it.

The Griffith House was like nothing Viviane remembered, reminding her of how fast the world changed and of how insignificant she was in the grand scheme of things. She thought it unfair that her life should be both irrelevant and difficult. One or the other seemed quite enough.

You don’t see yourself very clearly, Effy.” Preston shifted in his seat so that they were facing one another. “Challenging me isn’t pestering. I’m not always right. Sometimes I deserve to be challenged. And changing your mind isn’t foolish. It just means you’ve learned something new. Everyone changes their mind sometimes, as they should, or else they’re just, I don’t know, stubborn and ignorant. Moving water is healthy; stagnant water is sickly. Tainted.

It was then that I could feel that the moths in him, with their wings so paper-thin, will never be near enough to the light. They will always want to be nearer - to be inside of it. It was then that I could feel the lost thing in him.

The truth is that the only time I'm happy is when I'm doing absolutely nothing. I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feel like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

You let me eat up all papa’s anger so it wouldn’t poison you. you didn’t mind that he ruined me as long as you were unspoiled and safe. If you ever loved me, it was because I was a soft thing you threw down into the bottom of a pit to break your fall.

This time could be different. This time it could last. Maybe it would be a longer, deeper love: a real and solid entity that lived in the house, used the bathroom, ate their food, mussed up the linens in sleep. A love that pulled her close when she cried, that slept with its chest pressed against her back.

You have already captured my heart, body, and soul, Ava. I have no clue when it started, but at some point, my possessiveness and obsessiveness with you turned into this inferno of emotions where I was prepared to lose you if it meant protecting you. That’s when I realized I was in love with everything about you, whether it’s your obsession with pink, candy floss, or cheesy books and films. The lack of you has stripped my world of color and made me realize you’re my sole light in the darkness. It’s why I killed for you and would do it again in a heartbeat. I’d kill everyone if it meant I’d get to keep you. Perhaps that’s not the healthiest form of love, but it’s all I have. The heart you slowly awakened is entirely yours to do with as you please.

I looked up at Lee when we stopped in front of Hector and informed him helpfully, “You might want to take your arm away. Blanca tells me Hector doesn’t like men touching me.” “Blanca told you that?” Lee asked, his smile (and arm) still firmly in place. “Yes. She’s known Hector, like, his whole life so I think she’s in the position to know.” Lee nodded, his smile somehow bigger like he was trying not to laugh then his eyes moved to Hector and he said, “I tried to stop it.” Hector looked at Lee then looked at me then he muttered, “Oh fuck.” “It was Ally’s idea,” Lee told Hector. “What was Ally’s idea?” Hector asked Lee. “It was not Ally’s idea!” I cried. “It wasn’t!” super-power-eared Ally yelled from the open back window of Lee’s Explorer. “It was Sadie’s idea. I just was offering moral support.” “Shut up, Ally!” Indy shouted out the open passenger side window. “I will not shut up! I’m not taking the fall for this one!” Ally shouted back. I turned to the car, dislodging Lee’s arm and lifted both my hands and pressed down. “No one’s going to take a fall. Everyone calm down. It’s all okay. It’s rock ‘n’ roll!” I screamed. “Righteous!” Ally screamed back. “Rock on, sister!” Indy screamed too. “It’s rock ‘n’ roll?” Lee asked, sounding as amused as he looked. “You all wanna quit screamin’ at three o’clock in the mornin’ in my fuckin’ neighborhood?” Hector suggested. Mm, well maybe we were being an eensy bit loud. “Time for beddie by,” I announced (sounding like Ralphie), got up on tiptoe, kissed Lee’s cheek (like Ralphie and Buddy would do to me), turned and gave Indy and Ally a double devil’s horns (like Ava taught me) and shouted, “Rock on!” They shouted back in unison, “Rock on!” “Christ,” Hector muttered.

In the end I learned that the water was in me. It was a ghost that could not be exorcised. But a guest, even uninvited, must be attended to. You make up a bed for them. You pour from your best bottle of wine. If you can learn to love that wich despises you, you can dance on the shore and play in the waves again, like you did when you were young. Before the ocean is friend or foe, it simply is. And so are you.

Falling out of love was much harder than Gabe would have liked. Normally led through life by the heart attached to his sleeve, finding logic in love proved to be a bit like getting vaccinated for some dread disease: a good idea in the end, but the initial pain certainly wasn’t any fun. He came to appreciate that there were worse ways to live than to live without love. For instance, if he didn’t have arms, Gabe wouldn’t be able to hide in his work. Yes, a life without arms would be quite tragic, indeed.

You guys know I love you, right?" I glance between them, knowing they'll freak, but it has to be said. They look at each other, exchanging a look of alarm, both of them wondering what could've possibly happened to the girl they once pegged as the Ice Queen. "Um, okay..." Haven says, shaking her head. But I just smile and grasp them both to me, squeezing them tightly as I whisper to Miles, "Whatever you do don't stop acting or singing, it's going to bring you great happiness." And before he can respond, I've moved on to Haven, knowing I have to get this over with and quick, so I can get Damen to Ava's, but determined to find a way to urge her to love herself more, and that Josh is worth hanging on to for however long it lasts. "You have so much value," I tell her. "So much to give--I just wish you could see how bright your star truly does shine." "Um, gag!" she says, laughing as she untangles herself from my grip. "Are you okay?