Pen Pals Quotes

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams. When my first pen pal, Tomoko, stopped writing me after three letters she was the one who laughed: You think someone's going to lose life writing to you? Of course I cried; I was eight and I had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt me. My mother of course saw clean into the marrow of those dreams, and laughed. I wouldn't write to you either, she said. She was that kind of mother: who makes you doubt yourself, who would wipe you out if you let her. But I'm not going to pretend either. For a long time I let her say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.

Being alone is not the most awful thing in the world. You visit your museums and cultivate your interests and remind yourself how lucky you are not to be one of those spindly Sudanese children with flies beading their mouths. You make out To Do lists - reorganise linen cupboard, learn two sonnets. You dole out little treats to yourself - slices of ice-cream cake, concerts at Wigmore Hall. And then, every once in a while, you wake up and gaze out of the window at another bloody daybreak, and think, I cannot do this anymore. I cannot pull myself together again and spend the next fifteen hours of wakefulness fending off the fact of my own misery. People like Sheba think that they know what it's like to be lonely. They cast their minds back to the time they broke up with a boyfriend in 1975 and endured a whole month before meeting someone new. Or the week they spent in a Bavarian steel town when they were fifteen years old, visiting their greasy-haired German pen pal and discovering that her hand-writing was the best thing about her. But about the drip drip of long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. They don't know what it is to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the laundrette. Or to sit in a darkened flat on Halloween night, because you can't bear to expose your bleak evening to a crowd of jeering trick-or-treaters. Or to have the librarian smile pityingly and say, ‘Goodness, you're a quick reader!’ when you bring back seven books, read from cover to cover, a week after taking them out. They don't know what it is to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. I have sat on park benches and trains and schoolroom chairs, feeling the great store of unused, objectless love sitting in my belly like a stone until I was sure I would cry out and fall, flailing, to the ground. About all of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.

A frequent exchange of text messages is not a relationship. It's not even a pen-pal.

Of course, Zach Nortan could show up at school in a garbage bag and still look great.

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.

She’s wrong. So fucking wrong. There aren’t a million Aveena Harpers out there. My angry girl. My pen pal. My Love. Just one.

Funny thing, isn’t it, hindsight? It’s memory, but with new understanding tacked on, so that the past means something different than it did before.

You need your beauty sleep for tomorrow" she tells us "don't stay up too late talking" We ignore her of course.The whole point of a sleepover is to stay up too late talking.

So they were pen pals now, Emma composing long, intense letters crammed with jokes and underlining, forced banter and barely concealed longing; two-thousand-word acts of love on air-mail paper. Letters, like compilation tapes, were really vehicles for unexpressed emotions and she was clearly putting far too much time and energy into them. In return, Dexter sent her postcards with insufficient postage: ‘Amsterdam is MAD’, ‘Barcelona INSANE’, ‘Dublin ROCKS. Sick as DOG this morning.’ As a travel writer, he was no Bruce Chatwin, but still she would slip the postcards in the pocket of a heavy coat on long soulful walks on Ilkley Moor, searching for some hidden meaning in ‘VENICE COMPLETELY FLOODED!!!!

Fucking hell, you’re sweet. You’re so goddamn sweet, I just want to sink my teeth into every inch of you.

You’re the chaos. You’re the storm. You’re the one creating the high winds and choppy seas you have to navigate. You’re the source of everything that’s happening. In other words, you’re the one with the power.

I never lost you. Who do you think has been ringing the doorbell this whole time?

Kayla, be careful with me.” Surprised by that, I ask, “What do you mean?” “I know you think I’m strong. But the problem with strong things is that they’re brittle. They can’t bend under stress. They just break.

I was giving you space. Didn’t think it would turn into distance.

I learned that love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive.

Hell is a state of mind, my dear. Reality is simply what we believe it to be. Each of us makes our own truths, even ghosts.

Even small dragons can still breathe fire.

What we call memory is the intersection between imagination and fact. Memories are the stories we tell ourselves about the important events in our lives. In the telling, some details get lost, others embellished, until truth is closer to fiction.

You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive. But most of all, love means sacrifice. Whatever love asks of you must be given, no matter the price.

Hey, bunny,” he says softly, his eyes shining with adoration. “Did you miss me?

Chadwickius frenemus,

you can do all sorts of stuff that full-grown wizards can't, Viktor always said --" Ron looked around at her so fast he appeared to crick his neck; rubbing it, he said, "Yeah? What did Vicky say?" "Ho ho," said Hermione in a bored voice. "He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn't, and he was in the final year at Durmstrang." Ron was looking at Hermione suspiciously. "You're not still in contact with him are you?" "So what if I am?" said Hermione coolly, though her face was a little pink. "I can have a pen pal if I --" "He didn't only want to be your pen pal," said Ron accusingly. Hermione shook her head exasperatedly and ignored Ron, who was continuing to watch her.

I’ll wait forever if I have to.” That’s it. There’s nothing else, except a signature scratched below the words. Dante.

He’s like a little kid finally getting to play with his pen pal in person.

How naïve we are when we’re young. How easily we trust that the sun will keep rising and setting, warming our days. And what a terrible blow it is to discover it isn’t the sun that makes things bright, but the people who love us, so that when they’re gone, everything is plunged into darkness.

Friendship is where the best stories begin.

a quote from Henry David Thoreau: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

And exactly what is it you think I need, Aidan?” “To forget everything so you can remember who you are again.

Change is the nature of life, Cassidy. Some of it's good, like new babies being born and children growing up and leaving home and all the new adventures that both of those things bring. And sometimes change is more difficult - like when your dad died. But it's nothing to fear. Good or bad, when we rise up to meet it, change can make us stronger. It's what moved us farther along down the road ahead.

I remember when I was probably about ten years old I had a pen pal, and writing letters back and forth with him was one of my favorite things to do. His name was Steve and he lived in one of those huge mansions that's so big it has a name. It was called the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and he told me it was even bigger than the mayor's mansion. We'd send letters back and forth and he'd ask me to send him my favorite books and small pieces of metal or wood that were lying around and all the money I could find in my house. And I'd gather them all up and put cute little stickers of cats on the packages and send them away. It was so fun. Eventually we stopped writing because I moved to another city and he moved out to live on his own. He called it "solitary confinement." I was always so impressed by his vocabulary.

She hugged me tight, and I hugged her back. I was going to miss her—I knew it. But somehow, I had the feeling that we were going to be okay. I didn’t know what would happen with us. Maybe we’d find a way to attend the same college and be roommates and have the most amazingly decorated dorm room ever. Maybe we’d end up being pen pals, sending lists back and forth. Or we’d just stick to talking twice a week, or we’d video chat, or else just spend all our money traveling to hang out with each other on weekends. I somehow knew that the particulars didn’t matter. She was my heart, she was half of me, and nothing, certainly not a few measly hundred miles, was ever going to change that.

It’s incredible how many different people one body can hold. We all walk around with a thousand strangers inside us, slumbering quietly until someone else wakes them up. Like the jolt of electricity that reanimated Frankenstein’s monster, all it takes for our sleeping giants to jump to life is a single spark.

I’m gonna devour you, little bunny rabbit, piece by tasty piece. I’m going to eat. You. Up.

It’s worth it. No matter how bad it can get, no matter if it all falls apart in the end, it’s worth every minute.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, lover boy. I know I look like the girl next door, but inside, I’m more like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

We’re not introverts. We’re misanthropes. Big difference.

The path to paradise begins in hell. ~ The Divine Comedy

When someone dies, you start counting all the ways you failed them.

I really don’t understand men. Dealing with men is like dealing with a hostile alien species who crash-landed on the planet and decided our language and customs are too silly to be bothered with, and henceforth we should be treated with mild disdain and/or as objects of occasional sexual release before being ignored as inferior beings again.

Charis sipped, smiling back. "...I saw God everywhere." Grif narrowed his eyes. "Really?" She nodded and leaned close. "We were actually pen pals. I'd write Him letters in Latin and leave them in my closet." "Why the closet?" She shrugged. "Because He didn't appear after I set my front yard's bushes on fire, so I decided He was shy.

Pain is the cost of love. And the deeper your love goes, so too goes the pain. You can never have one without the other.

So, tell me, Love,” Dad asked as I stared at my new friend with beady eyes. “What kind of person do you want to be in life? A butterfly?” He paused. “Or a caterpillar?

Did I ever tell you that my mother and father started out as pen pals? They wrote these long, unabashedly affectionate love letters to one another, peppered with clichés and pie-in-the-sky proclamations of eternal devotion. Despite my father’s eventual dishonesty and unfaithfulness, I have to believe he meant every word he wrote at that time, and it was admittedly romantic, uncovering my parents’ yellowed letters, all soft, crumbling corners and black ink stains, one rainy afternoon. Because how can anyone scrawl lies, really, in their own handwriting, the evidence of your own betrayal right in front of you? I sat cross-legged on the floor, holding my breath as I unfolded each letter, fragile and expectant, like a little girl opening her presents on Christmas morning. I sat there and soaked up my parents’ love for each other, and then I wondered where all those feelings had escaped to. I wondered where love went when it was lost—did it travel far, across miles and oceans and forests and deserts, or did it linger somewhere nearby, just waiting for a chance to be summoned again? Wherever it was, I could only hope it had ended up settling somewhere quieter, safer.

I read somewhere that grief is more than an emotion. It’s a physical experience, too. All kinds of nasty stress chemicals get released into the bloodstream when a person is grieving. Fatigue, nausea, headaches, dizziness, food aversion, insomnia… The list of side-effects is long.

About the only good thing about being sex-starved and hornier than the blue wildebeest in mating season she'd once had to write an essay on, was the vast improvement on her pen-pal repertoire. Phone sex? Pah! Any schmuck could talk dirty and get off on it. The art of airmail sex, however, presented a much greater challenge and one she'd excelled at, if Mark's responses were anything to go by. It was a wonder the planes didn't catch fire.

Still here?” he drawls when he notices me. “Still a presumptuous asshole?” I snap back. I expect him to double down on the nasty replies, to crush me with spite, so you can imagine my surprise when he clamps his mouth shut, the corners of his lips twitching into a small smile. His pale eyes rake over my face for a second too long, and I squirm under his undivided attention. Why, oh why, does he have to look like that? Low blow, Life, low blow.

I don't like labels being put on anyone. I judge the person on how they interact with me. If you're good to me, I'll be good to you. It's just that simple. A persons sexual preference doesn't come before me. To me that's personal and private. In short, people need to mind their own business. My philosophy is live and let live.

The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timer—a dinner date with Sam was at most two hours, with other friends, probably not even as long. There was maybe waiting for a table, there was a night at a bar, there was a party that went late, but even that was just a few hours of actual time spent. Most of Alice’s friendships now felt like they were virtual, like the pen pals of her youth. It was so easy to go years without seeing someone in person, to keep up to date just through the pictures they posted of their dog or their baby or their lunch. There was never this—a day spent floating from one thing to another. This was how Alice imagined marriage, and family—always having someone to float through the day with, someone with whom it didn’t take three emails and six texts and a last-minute reservation change to see one another. Everyone had it when they were kids, but only the truly gifted held on to it in adulthood. People with siblings usually had a leg up, but not always.

Friends are one of life’s richest blessings.

I sometimes wonder what will be left on my to-do list when I die.

What we need is a séance.” I say flatly, “That’s ridiculous.” “No, the federal tax rate is ridiculous. This is simply a situation that needs to be remedied.

But most of all, love means sacrifice.

I LOVE PEN PAL

You aren’t looking for a pen pal, and if need be, say that.

Do you think I’m crazy, fantasizing about a guy I’ve never met in person, Jeremiah? Hell, we haven’t even spoken on the phone or video chatted—just old-fashioned, hand-written letters.

Within minutes of being offered congratulations and best wishes, she acquired a Crowgard pen pal and was told by the coffee shop’s manager that a ride was waiting for her in the access way.

Dear Pen Pal, I know it’s been a few years since I last wrote you. I hope you’re still there. I’m not sure you ever were. I never got any letters back from you when I was a kid. But in a way it was always therapeutic. Everyone else judges everything I say. And here you are: some anonymous person who never says “boo.” Maybe you just read my letters and laughed or maybe you didn’t read my letters or maybe you don’t even exist. It was pretty frustrating when I was young, but now I’m glad that you won’t respond. Just listen. That’s what I want. My dog died. I don’t know if you remember, but I had a beagle. He was a good dog. My best friend. I’d had him as far back as I could remember, but one day last month he didn’t come bounding out of his red doghouse like usual. I called his name. But no response. I knelt down and called out his name. Still nothing. I looked in his doghouse. There was blood everywhere. Cowering in the corner was my dog. His eyes were wild and there was an excessive amount of saliva coming out of his mouth. He was unrecognizable. Both frightened and frightening at the same time. The blood belonged to a little yellow bird that had always been around. My dog and the bird used to play together. In a strange way, it was almost like they were best friends. I know that sounds stupid, but… Anyway, the bird had been mangled. Ripped apart. By my dog. When he saw that I could see what he’d done, his face changed to sadness and he let out a sound that felt like the word ‘help.’ I reached my hand into his doghouse. I know it was a dumb thing to do, but he looked like he needed me. His jaws snapped. I jerked my hand away before he could bite me. My parents called a center and they came and took him away. Later that day, they put him to sleep. They gave me his corpse in a cardboard box. When my dog died, that was when the rain cloud came back and everything went to hell…

Funny thing, isn’t it, hindsight? It’s memory, but with new understanding tacked on, so that the past means something different than it did before. And the only way to find that meaning is to look for it. Look to the past.

And she’d also found Logan again. Now he was her … what? New-old boyfriend? Lover? Skype buddy? Pen pal with benefits? Whatever his title, his e-mails filled her inbox. Sometimes he sent five a day, short and quipping. Other times he sent longer, more serious ones. She kept her tone light when she replied. That’d always been her MO—a joke, a jab. A way to deflect from what she was really feeling. A way to keep the nonstop ache of missing him from becoming too painful to survive. And honestly, what was there to say that would come close to what she felt? The moments they’d spent together before he’d shipped out on his latest naval tour had been the most peaceful she could remember—even with her anxiety about her dad. It’d been the first time she’d felt complete in a long time. And then, just like that, he was gone again.

You really want to know?” He drags out the suspense. “Yes.” I grow restless. “Spill.” “Well, for starters… most guys our age aren’t looking to date.” He elaborates. “They just want to fuck around. And those who do want to date are only looking for a girl to make them feel good about themselves.” “Meaning?” “Meaning they want her to laugh at their jokes, stroke their egos, give good head and… that’s pretty much it.” He draws a small smile out of me. “So, when guys like that see a girl like you, a girl who doesn’t look easy or desperate, they get intimidated. Label her high-maintenance and run like hell. You’re beauty and brains, Vee. You’re an immature high school boy’s worst nightmare.

Difficult times, my friend, but there is a path. There must be. We will find it.

I mail it before I lose my nerve. It takes a week before I get a response, and it’s even shorter than mine. In fact, it’s only one word. You.

What are you waiting for? I mail it before I lose my nerve. It takes a week before I get a response, and it’s even shorter than mine. In fact, it’s only one word. You.

Never met a woman who thinks louder than you do.” “Sorry. I’m always up in my head.

Hindsight is a real bitch sometimes.

I knew one of those once. She was only four-foot-ten, but she scared the living shit outta me.” I smile at him. “Even small dragons can still breathe fire.

he says softly, “Tell me what you need from me.” I’ve never had a man ask me that before.

So many words, and all so meaningless. Everything is meaningless.

I’m only amazing when I’m with you. The rest of the time, I’m nobody.

I learned that love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive. But most of all, love means sacrifice

Then he murmurs, “What I’m worried about is giving my heart away to a woman who’s still wearing a wedding ring.

Oh, that reminds me. You promised you were going to make love to me, not fuck me.” “Semantics.

Aidan disappears, replaced in an instant by a predator. A dangerous, beautiful predator, poised to shred me to bits with sharp teeth.

Bad bunny,” he whispers. “So bad.

Ow!” “Say you’re sorry for trying to run away, bunny.” “No! I’m not sorry!

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. ∼ Rabindranath Tagore

We’re magnets who don’t want to be magnets, pulled together by invisible elements beyond our control.

We skipped the dinner dates and polite conversation and jumped straight to kinky fuckery.

I don’t believe in ghosts.” She gazes at me steadily. “What you believe is immaterial, Kayla. Because ghosts most definitely believe in you.

Sweet bunny,” he whispers, still chuckling. “I think you like me.” Flaming with embarrassment, I say, “Nah, I just need my roof fixed, and I thought I’d shag your brains out to see if I could get a discount.

I was overjoyed two weeks later when I received 6 letter pages back from Alex. Three of which were devoted to memories of the times in Alex’s childhood when he’d been intimidated by boys in sewage tunnels and of the violence that ensued. After the passage in which Alex detailed the anatomy of the human nose and how weak it is in comparison to a swiftly butted forehead, I asked him just exactly who I had become pen pals with….

With his hands in my hair and his face turned to my neck, he says gruffly, “If you decide this isn’t what you want, promise me you’ll end it before I fall in love with you.” “I promise,” I whisper, fighting tears all over again.

I thought we were negotiating.” “We are.” “Then you can’t just keep saying the same number.” “Says who?” “Says me!” “Lucky for me, you’re not the one with the upper hand here.” I stare at him in outrage with my mouth hanging open. Then a strange thing happens: he smiles. “I just wanted to see what you’d do when I said that.” I’d like to run him over with my car. I say firmly, “Forty-five hundred.” “Ninety-nine-ninety-nine.” “You’ve got to be kidding me.

Kissing my neck, he whispers back, “How do you want me to fuck you, sweet Kayla?” Oh God. There isn’t enough time in the world to cover all of it. “Um…vigorously?” He drops his forehead to my shoulder and dissolves into soft laughter.

Whatever love asks of you must be given, no matter the price. And I’d gladly give what love asked of me a thousand times over. Even if I had to do it every day until the end of eternity, I’d slice open my own veins with a razor blade and happily bleed myself dry.

Watching them, I’m shot through the heart with an arrow of anguish. The kiss. The companionship. The simple joy of being with someone you love, sharing a laugh and a drink. Thinking you have all the time in the world until, out of nowhere, that clock stops ticking.

I wish you knew how perfect you are. How different and perfect. I’ve never met anyone like you. Whenever we’re together, I feel like a new man. A better man. Like everything bad that’s ever happened to me doesn’t matter anymore because your sweet smile takes it all away.

I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I spin to leave. “No fucking way.” It clicks in his mind. “Little Vee?” Here he is. “You’re that girl Finn and I used to…” He doesn’t complete his sentence, but I know all too well what he was going to say. “Annoy? Tease? Torture? Why, yes, that would be me. Did you seriously just figure that out? A bit slow, are we?” I snark. My outburst only seems to amuse him. “Look, in my defense, your mom only ever called you ‘Vee.’ I thought it was short for Vicky or Vivian or something. And it was ten years ago. I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night.” “Whatever.” I shrug. “Shit, I’ve got to say, Vee.” He gives me a once-over. “Puberty did you a solid.” My cheeks combust. “Wish I could say the same about you,” I lie through my teeth. Xavier smiles at my failed attempt to deny the undeniable. Let’s not pretend like puberty didn’t do every female on earth a solid when Xavier Emery went from “cute” to “sinfully hot” in the span of a summer. “I think you mispronounced thank you.” He flashes a smug grin that makes me want to knee him where it hurts.

Em and her people have hurricane hearts. And me? I must cultivate a heart of ruby fire from now on. The power of ruby fire is different from hurricane power. Everyone can see a hurricane coming, and so they shake with fear. The ruby fire no one can see coming until it arrives—and so they shake with fear.

I’m crossing our backyard to the Pearces’, trying to juggle the bag and the portable speakers and my phone, when I see John Ambrose McClaren standing in front of the tree house, staring up at it with his arms crossed. I’d know the back of his blond head anywhere. I freeze, suddenly nervous and unsure. I’d thought Peter or Chris would be here with me when he arrived, and that would smooth out any awkwardness. But no such luck. I put down all my stuff and move forward to tap him on the shoulder, but he turns around before I can. I take a step back. “Hi! Hey!” I say. “Hey!” He takes a long look at me. “Is it really you?” “It’s me.” “My pen pal the elusive Lara Jean Covey who shows up at Model UN and runs off without so much as a hello?” I bite the inside of my cheek. “I’m pretty sure I at least said hello.” Teasingly he says, “No, I’m pretty sure you didn’t.” He’s right: I didn’t. I was too flustered. Kind of like right now. It must be that distance between knowing someone when you were a kid and seeing them now that you’re both more grown-up, but still not all the way grown-up, and there are all these years and letters in between you, and you don’t know how to act. “Well--anyway. You look…taller.” He looks more than just taller. Now that I can take the time to really look at him, I notice more. With his fair hair and milky skin and rosy cheeks, he looks like he could be an English farmer’s son. But he’s slim, so maybe the sensitive farmer’s son who steals away to the barn to read. The thought makes me smile, and John gives me a curious look but doesn’t ask why. With a nod, he says, “You look…exactly the same.” Gulp. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? “I do?” I get up on my tiptoes. “I think I’ve grown at least an inch since eighth grade.” And my boobs are at least a little bigger. Not much. Not that I want John to notice--I’m just saying.

A poem to Raymond, whom everybody loves, originally composed on a waterproof smartphone in a sea of love, which was hidden under the pile of garbage that my bum-pals that have no pen names, or pen-pals, or names, for that matter, brought to me as an offering on the 1st of April 1877, exactly 111 years and 7 months before I was brought forth to this world, because some anonymous prophet told them this would bring luck, joy, happiness, food, and, of course – shelter from evil (he was lying): If it's fantasy you seek, to E. Feist then, you must speak. All he writes is all there is, for his words, they move the seas. . I would write, but I know naught. In my heart there is a draught. Hidden desert - golden sands. Few my love can ever stand. And so far I've talked to many, a reply - will there be any? I know - not, yet I know naught, all to question, I was taught... So I learn, I borrow wisdom, from the great, the ones with vision. They can teach, the few that grasp, concepts from a long forgotten past.

You’re spending the night.” I blink in surprise. “Are you a mind reader or something?” “No. Why?” “Um. No reason.” “Bullshit.” “Okay, fine. I was just wondering if I should go home now.” “I just told you that you’re spending the night. You can leave in the morning and have the rest of your life to worry that this was a mistake, but for tonight, you’re staying right here.

I’m about to head out the door to meet Hannah for coffee. Laura has texted asking if I want to take another improv course with her next month, and I’ve said yes. I’m reading the next book for our book club. Paul and his girlfriend are coming over for dinner next week. Sam and I are going to make Thanksgiving at ours an annual tradition. Claude and I are email pen pals now, and he always signs off, ‘I hope that you are well and that you do nice things,’ which I like very much. Lily and Vivian are trying to persuade me to perform comedy again. Probably I’ll just go along to their gigs and cheer them on. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I have a tiny little social life. A new way to experience the world when I want to. I really like my comfort zone, but I also know I’ll be OK if I leap into the unknown or the scary for a little while.

The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timer—a dinner date with Sam was at most two hours, with other friends, probably not even as long. There was maybe waiting for a table, there was a night at a bar, there was a party that went late, but even that was just a few hours of actual time spent. Most of Alice’s friendships now felt like they were virtual, like the pen pals of her youth. It was so easy to go years without seeing someone in person, to keep up to date just through the pictures they posted of their dog or their baby or their lunch. There was never this—a day spent floating from one thing to another. This was how Alice imagined marriage, and family—always having someone to float through the day with, someone with whom it didn’t take three emails and six texts and a last-minute reservation change to see one another. Everyone had it when they were kids, but only the truly gifted held on to it in adulthood.

I wouldn’t have blamed him. Had he been on top of his meds, I really wouldn’t. Mental illness isn’t something you do to yourself. It’s not a choice. Your brain gets sabotaged by chemicals that are beyond your control. What is in your control, however, is your response to the sabotage. He was too proud to stay on his treatment plan. He thought he could handle his illness by himself. In his arrogance, he thought willpower alone was strong enough to conquer biology. He was wrong.

You look…exactly the same.” Gulp. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? “I do?” I get up on my tiptoes. “I think I’ve grown at least an inch since eighth grade.” And my boobs are at least a little bigger. Not much. Not that I want John to notice--I’m just saying. “No, you look…just like how I remembered you.” John Ambrose reaches out, and I think he’s trying to hug me but he’s only trying to take my bag from me, and there’s a brief but strange dance that mortifies me but he doesn’t seem to notice. “So thanks for inviting me.” “Thanks for coming.” “Do you want me to take this stuff up for you?” “Sure,” I say. John takes the bag from me and looks inside. “Oh, wow. All of our old snacks! Why don’t you climb up first and I’ll pass it to you.” So that’s what I do: I scramble up the ladder and he climbs up behind me. I’m crouched, arms outstretched, waiting for him to pass me the bag. But when he gets halfway up the ladder, he stops and looks up at me and says, “You still wear your hair in fancy braids.” I touch my side braid. Of all the things to remember about me. Back then, Margot was the one who braided my hair. “You think it looks fancy?” “Yeah. Like…expensive bread.” I burst out laughing. “Bread!” “Yeah. Or…Rapunzel.” I get down on my stomach, wriggle over to the edge, and pretend like I’m letting down my hair for him to climb. He climbs up to the top of the ladder and passes me the bag, which I take, and then he grins at me and gives my braid a tug. I’m still lying down but feel an electric charge like he’s zapped me. I’m suddenly feeling very anxious about the worlds that will be colliding, the past and the present, a pen pal and a boyfriend, all in this little tree house. Probably I should have thought this through a bit better. But I was so focused on the time capsule, and the snacks, and the idea of it--old friends coming back together to do what we said we’d do. And now here we are, in it. “Everything okay?” John asks, offering me his hand as I rise to my feet. I don’t take his hand; I don’t want another zap. “Everything’s great,” I say cheerily. “Hey, you never sent back my letter,” he says. “You broke an unbreakable vow.” I laugh awkwardly. I’d kind of been hoping he wouldn’t bring that up. “It was too embarrassing. The things I wrote. I couldn’t bear the thought of another person seeing it.” “But I already saw it,” he reminds me.

Domenico, my pen pal and the master of ceremonies, emerges from the kitchen in a cobalt suit bearing a plate of bite-sized snacks: ricotta caramel, smoked hake, baby artichoke with shaved bottarga. The first course lands on the table with a wink from Domenico: raw shrimp, raw sheep, and a shower of wild herbs and flowers- an edible landscape of the island. I raise my fork tentatively, expecting the intensity of a mountain flock, but the sheep is amazingly delicate- somehow lighter than the tiny shrimp beside it. The intensity arrives with the next dish, the calf's liver we bought at the market, transformed from a dense purple lobe into an orb of pâté, coated in crushed hazelnuts, surrounded by fruit from the market this morning. The boneless sea anemones come cloaked in crispy semolina and bobbing atop a sticky potato-parsley puree. Bread is fundamental to the island, and S'Apposentu's frequent carb deliveries prove the point: a hulking basket overflowing with half a dozen housemade varieties from thin, crispy breadsticks to a dense sourdough loaf encased in a dark, gently bitter crust. The last savory course, one of Roberto's signature dishes, is the most stunning of all: ravioli stuffed with suckling pig and bathed in a pecorino fondue. This is modernist cooking at its most magnificent: two fundamental flavors of the island (spit-roasted pig and sheep's-milk cheese) cooked down and refined into a few explosive bites. The kind of dish you build a career on.

Pen, you really shouldn’t use the same password for all your accounts. I’ve headed off three hackers in the last week who would’ve gotten into your PayPal, bank, and electric company accounts.” “What?” Penelope was obviously confused at the change in subject, but Cade merely relaxed back in his seat and kept his eyes on Beth as she fidgeted uncomfortably. “Using PenisGod isn’t a good username for things like Amazon and eBay. And you really need to delete your craigslist account because calling yourself a penis god is only attracting weirdos. You probably don’t even remember you had that old ad up when you were trying to sell your bicycle. Well, it’s one of the most clicked-on ads on the site for San Antonio. I’m not exaggerating either. You had four hundred and sixty-nine messages—and I’m not even going to comment on the sixty-nine thing. But three hundred and fourteen of those contained pictures of men’s dicks. Fifty-seven contained marriage proposals, most from overseas; twenty-seven were from women who were interested in a threesome with you, fifty-five were spam, people trying to get you to click on links or buy some crap product, and the remaining sixteen emails were religious in nature, telling you to repent for your soul.” “I should probably be pissed you got into my account, but I trust you, so I’m not. But it’s not penis god!” Penelope exclaimed huffily. “It’s Pen IS God.” Cade burst out laughing. “Seriously, sis? Penis god? Just wait until the guys hear this!

Like,” he repeats with distaste. “How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry, or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn’t tell me about the ‘next big series’ until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms. Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are. No matter how many copies you promise I’ll sell on Mother’s Day.” Amelia blushes, though she is angry more than embarrassed. She agrees with some of what A.J. has said, but his manner is unnecessarily insulting. Knightley Press doesn’t even sell half of that stuff anyway. She studies him. He is older than Amelia but not by much, not by more than ten years. He is too young to like so little. “What do you like?” she asks. “Everything else,” he says. “I will also admit to an occasional weakness for short-story collections. Customers never want to buy them though.” There is only one short-story collection on Amelia’s list, a debut. Amelia hasn’t read the whole thing, and time dictates that she probably won’t, but she liked the first story. An American sixth-grade class and an Indian sixth-grade class participate in an international pen pal program. The narrator is an Indian kid in the American class who keeps feeding comical misinformation about Indian culture to the Americans. She clears her throat, which is still terribly dry. “The Year Bombay Became Mumbai. I think it will have special int—” “No,” he says. “I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet.” “Just no.” “But why?” “If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that you’re only telling me about it because I’m partially Indian and you think this will be my special interest. Am I right?” Amelia imagines smashing the ancient computer over his head. “I’m telling you about this because you said you liked short stories! And it’s the only one on my list. And for the record”—here, she lies—“it’s completely wonderful from start to finish. Even if it is a debut. “And do you know what else? I love debuts. I love discovering something new. It’s part of the whole reason I do this job.” Amelia rises. Her head is pounding. Maybe she does drink too much? Her head is pounding and her heart is, too. “Do you want my opinion?” “Not particularly,” he says. “What are you, twenty-five?” “Mr. Fikry, this is a lovely store, but if you continue in this this this”—as a child, she stuttered and it occasionally returns when she is upset; she clears her throat—“this backward way of thinking, there won’t be an Island Books before too long.