Ky Markham Quotes

Cassia. I know which life is my real one now, no matter what happens. It’s the one with you. For some reason, knowing that even one person knows my story makes things different. Maybe it’s like the poem says. Maybe this is my way of not going gentle. I love you. (Ky Markham)

Let me believe in this, all of this, and you believe it too. (Ky Markham)

You don’t usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have. (Ky Markham)

Good-byes are like this. You can’t always mark them well at the moment of separation—no matter how deep they cut. (Ky Markham)

But my father goes on."And I've noticed other things,too.I think you're in love with Ky Markham.I think you want to find him,wherever he's gone.

Neither of us moves for a moment, locked instead in each other's eyes and in the branches of this Hill we might never finish climbing.

The two of us hold each other's gazes for a long, unembarrassed moment and I feel that Ky knows. I'm not sure what he knows - whether he knows me, or just something about me.

The pain wants to eat me away. I wish I could have one without the other, but that's the problem with being alive. You don't usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have.

When it rains, I remember

Markham," I tell him. "Ky Markham." Because that's the name she knows me by. That's my real name now.

The way the two of them look at each other is like touching.

They are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing. And I'll tell her that I don't want samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing.

You don’t usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have - Ky Markham

The words aren't peaceful," Ky says. "I know." "Then why do they make me feel calm?" Ky asks in wonder. "I don't understand.

Ky can play this game . . . He knows exactly how to play, and that's why he loses every time.

When you've lost everything, why not take what you can before they come down on you ?

You lied about Xander's secret, didn't you? What is it?" "I can't tell you." "Why not?" "It's not mine to tell," I say. "It's his." It's not just selfishness that keeps me from telling Cassia Xander's secret. I know he wanted to tell her himself. I owe him that. He knew my secret- my status as an Aberration- and never told anyone. Not even Cassia. This isn't a game. He's not my opponent and Cassia's not a prize.

Tell me why," she says. "Why would you want to lie to me? Why would you take a choice from me?" Her gaze has softened and she's looking at me as Ky again- the person she loves- and somehow that's even worse. All the reasons I lied run through my head: because I can't lose you, because I was jealous, because I don't trust anyone, because I can't even trust myself, because, because, because. "You know why," I say, anger flaring in me suddenly. At everything. Everyone. The Society, the Rising, my father, myself, Indie, Xander, Cassia. "No, I don't," she beings, but I don't let her finish. "Fear," I say, holding her gaze. "We were both afraid. I was afraid of losing you. You were afraid, back in the Borough. When you took my choice away from me.

If what she wants is the Rising, I will help her reach it.

I imagine these drops of rain hitting the scales of the sandstone fish I carved for Vick. Every drop helps the poisoned stream, I think, holding my hands out open wide. Not catching the drops or trying to hold them. I'm letting them leave their mark and then letting them go. Let go. Of my parents, and the pain of what happened to them. Of what I failed to do. Of all the people I failed to save or bury. Of my jealously of Xander. Of my guilt over what happened to Vick. Of worrying about what I can never be and who I never was in the first place. Let go of it all.

I know you came into the Carving for me, Cassia. But the Rising is the one place I don't know if I can go for you.

Is it weak to feel the way I do when I think of Ky Markham? To know exactly the spot on my skin where he touched me? Whatever I’ve been feeling for Ky must stop. Now. I am Matched with Xander. It does not matter that Ky has been places I’ve never been or that he wept during the showing when he thought no one could see. It does not matter that he knows about the beautiful words I read in the woods. Following the rules, staying safe. Those are the things that matter. Those are the ways I have to be strong. I will try to forget that Ky said “home” when he looked into my eyes.

I promised myself then that I wouldn't let fear make me into someone I didn't want to be.