Tradition Brendan Kiely Quotes

even in a room full of girls it was all about the guys.

we live by the lies we believe

THERE’S REALLY NO SUCH THING AS THE “VOICELESS.” THERE ARE ONLY THE DELIBERATELY SILENCED, OR THE PREFERABLY UNHEARD. —ARUNDHATI ROY

Prepped. Now there was a familiar word at Fullbrook. Make sure you are prepped. Prep this, prep that. So much prep. Sometimes I wondered if "prepped" was actually the right word.

I'm fighting for breath and I all can do is look up and see the white flame of moonlight outlining each branch, every leaf. I'm in the dirt again, shoulder against the tree, the shock of air so cold it seizes my bones. I can still feel his grip on my arm as if he's still there, shackling me to the trunk with his hands and his weight, but he's not. He's gone.

I'm shaking, but it feels like this tree and the sky above that are shaking, that are blurry, unreal, no longer what they were. It's as if I'm naked, but I'm not. It's as if the ground is swinging up to slap me, but it's not. I collapse by the edge of the bluff. There are still voices in the woods behind me. Voices down along the far end of the bluff. Voices in the night air like invisible birds screeching in the wind.

If you care about a person, my ex-girlfriend used to tell me, don't just tell her. Show her. Show up, listen and act so she knows you heard her. Seems so simple the way she put it, but it's never that simple.

I once heard another girl put it like this: this is a boys' school and they accept girls here too. At Fullbrook, they told us to be ready to take on the world, but then they told us to do it quietly. What if I wanted to be loud? What if I needed to be?

Ready to take on the world? I'd seen the motto when I visited the previous spring. Everybody at Fullbrook seemed like a genius to me, already worldy, already honing their special skill, building robots, singing arias, starting their own tech company. I wasn't ready to tie a tie. What did I do? I could stop a puck from passing between the pipes, but I had to make it all the way to winter before anyone would care about that.

Like this whole stupid paradise, this very good school is nothing but a fancy promise, a broken one, a big lie. And worse, that I'm actually part of it.

Most people don't get second chances. I wasn't sure I deserved one. I wasn't sure I even wanted one. But I got one: Fullbrook Academy. This is what I did with it.

I'm so close to the cliff edge, I could crawl forward and drop, crouch on one knee by the side of the pool like I did when I first learned to dive, but I'm hundreds of feet in the air and the voice tells me to back up. I obey. It tells me to stand and I use the tree to help me to my feet.

Run, it says again and I do, into the woods, down the far path, away from the party, away from the other voices, away from everyone. I know where I'm going, but I still feel lost. Alone. I just want to get home, though the word means nothing now. Just because I live there doesn't mean it's somewhere safe.