Amazing how hope lives. Without air or water, with hardly anything at all to nurture it.
Lauren OliverBut the guilt goes even deeper than that. It, too, is dust: Layers and layers of it have accumulated. Because if it werenโt for me, Lena and Alex would never have been caught at all. I told on them. I was jealous. God forgive me, for I have sinned.
Lauren OliverThe secret is,โ I say, whispering right into his ear, โthat yours was the best kiss Iโve ever had in my life.โ โBut Iโve never kissed you,โ he whispers back. Around us the rain sounds like falling glass. โNot since third grade, anyway.โ I smile, but Iโm not sure if he can see it. โBetter get started, then,โ I say, โbecause I donโt have much time.
Lauren OliverI'm so tired after dinner I fall asleep with my clothes on, almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, and so I forget to ask God, in my prayers, to keep me from waking up.
Lauren OliverI hate both of my parents right now: for sitting quietly in our house, while out in the darkness my heart was beating away all of the seconds of my life, ticking them off one by one until my time was up; for letting the thread between us stretch so far and so thin that the moment it was severed for good they didn't even feel it.
Lauren Oliver