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ae622a3
|
You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here.
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Ned Vizzini |
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9e852d0
|
Then I get up and turn on the light. (Did anyone notice I was in here in the dark? Did they see the lack of light under the crack and notice it like a roach? Did Nia see?) Then I look in the mirror. I look so normal. I look like I've always looked, like I did before the fall of last year. Dark hair and dark eyes and one snaggled tooth. Big eyebrows that meet in the middle. A long nose, sort of twisted. Pupils that are naturally large--it's ..
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Ned Vizzini |
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02e4cca
|
Who hasn't thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?
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Ned Vizzini |
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c1f872a
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your relationship with air--that's key. You can't break up with air.
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relationship
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Ned Vizzini |
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1300055
|
I was already obsessed. The test had offended me by giving me questions I couldn't answer. I intended to kill it.
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Ned Vizzini |
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8b7b809
|
I don't want to brag, but if I go through this, and I go back to camp, I'll have something unique to talk about. I can be like, 'Hey, not only am I not a virgin, I lost my virginity to a frog-headed exotic dancer.' Will that be something to brag about or something to be ashamed of?
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Ned Vizzini |
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3b47c19
|
Verbal Greeting, Refusal to Touch Hands, Public Denial of Formerly Agreed-upon Opinion, Refusal to Repeat a Joke and Mortification Event (a catch-all). I use the Humiliation
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Ned Vizzini |
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fbe150d
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The therapists told you that you needed to find happiness within yourself before you got it from another person...
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Ned Vizzini |
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17089e6
|
Someday someone is going to find this pelvis sexy or I'll never have children.
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Ned Vizzini |
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bb4a4f3
|
My brother,' Mortin says as Leidan shuffles away. 'So much potential, wasted.' He takes a swig of beer. I wonder whose potential he really thinks is wasted. I look through his upturned drink at the walls and ceiling. Things look sadder when glimpsed through alcohol.
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Ned Vizzini |
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b9af3d6
|
If Bobby can get a place to live, I think, then I can get a life worth living.
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Ned Vizzini |
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cb92324
|
Wherever Cool is, anyway, I missed it, and now I'm stuck observing these machinations or sex and status and dancing and parties and people sucking at each other under the bleacher seating like some kind of freak, when I'm not the freak; Rich is the freak. Clearly. When I grow up, that had better be understood and I had better be compensated, or I'm going to shoot myself in the head.
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sex
freak
coming-of-age
cool
teenagers
teens
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Ned Vizzini |
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7dab461
|
I used to not want to call them shrinks, but now that I've been through so many, I feel entitled to it. It's an adult term, and it's disrespectful, and I'm more than two thirds adult and I'm pretty disrespectful, so what the hell.
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Ned Vizzini |
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851a821
|
I'll get up and bike to the Brooklyn Bridge and throw myself off it.
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Ned Vizzini |
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f4c0962
|
We came up to the first tower of the bridge, with a plaque proclaiming who had built it; I stopped to read. John Roebling. Aided by his wife, and then his son. He died during construction. But hey, the Brooklyn Bridge might be here for eight hundred years. I wanted to leave something like that behind. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I felt like I had taken the first steps
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Ned Vizzini |
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7fa8010
|
But your relationship with air--that's key. You can't break up with air. You're kind of stuck together. Only slightly less crucial is water. And then food. You can't be dropping food to hang with someone else. You need to strike up an agreement with it.
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Ned Vizzini |
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82651dc
|
Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner." Dr. Mahmoud leans in. "Life is managed."
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Ned Vizzini |
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a9d66e3
|
We all live within time. It rules us.
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time
young-adult
mental-health
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Ned Vizzini |
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cfef336
|
It is five in the morning. I have woken up without any alarm. I have woken up because the thoughts are so loud, and none of them mean me well.
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Ned Vizzini |
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0cb6680
|
I was in some one else's house, so I woke up early - at eight - with that crazy sleeping-at-someone-else's-house energy.
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Ned Vizzini |
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f23879e
|
I can smell the sex on her. I hope she smells the love on me.
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lust
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Ned Vizzini |
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7b4c1ce
|
After college, I went through my own shit and decided that all physical suffering in the world couldn't compare to mental anguish. And when I got myself, I decided to help other people.
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mental-illness
psychiatry
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Ned Vizzini |
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3ab98bb
|
Where are you supposed to put your arms when you dance? It's like the Universal Question.
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Ned Vizzini |
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3534064
|
At least I'm giving someone an example not to follow.
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Ned Vizzini |
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40f92d6
|
Life's not about feeling better; it's about getting the job done.
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Ned Vizzini |
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d4eec9c
|
I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?
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Ned Vizzini |
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d22b044
|
Brooklyn is a big fat blob with its own ugly shape across from Manhattan; it looks like Jabba the Hutt counting his money.
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Ned Vizzini |
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8d5b0cf
|
Do you know about lock picking?" "I'm sure it's like sex."
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Ned Vizzini |
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431a4d7
|
Whether it's sleeping or playing video games or riding my bike or studying. Giving my brain up. That's what's important.
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Ned Vizzini |
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a922de9
|
Well, my dad died when I was three." Shoot. That's right. Some of us have actual things to complain about."
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Ned Vizzini |
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e57038c
|
A doctor comes into 22. She has long, dark hair and a pudgy face and bright green eyes. "Hey." "I'm Dr. Data." "Dr. Data?" "Yes." Huh. I want to ask her if she's an android, but that wouldn't be very respectful; and besides, I'm not up to it."
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Ned Vizzini |
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d0c4b30
|
I'm waiting for her to say "Craig, what you need to do is X" and for the Shift to occur. I want there to be a Shift so bad."
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Ned Vizzini |
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a72ce24
|
Bobby sips his coffee. "If there wasn't coffee on this earth, I'd be dead."
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Ned Vizzini |
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bf2e713
|
I smile to myself. I have a secret: I wish I was Dumbo the Octopus.
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Ned Vizzini |
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e6c7ace
|
But it suddenly makes sense: I'd like to be under the sea, as an octopus.
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Ned Vizzini |
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1572032
|
Just be careful of forming close relationships, Craig. Focus on yourself." "Okay." "Only then does healing take place." "All right."
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Ned Vizzini |
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05c155a
|
I look up at her, rolling her mouth and smiling down. I look at the map. It's not a brain, clearly; it's a map; can't she see the rivers and highways and interchanges? But I see how it could look like a brain, like if all roads were twisted neurons, pulling your emotions from one place to another, bringing the city to life. A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It's th..
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Ned Vizzini |
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f265b51
|
There's great stuff in there. There's a disease called Ondine's Curse, in which your body loses the ability to breathe involuntarily. Can you imagine? You have to think "breathe, breathe" all the time, or you stop breathing. Most people who get it die."
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Ned Vizzini |
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55233af
|
That means you start today. This is an opportunity for you to explore your interests. So I ask you: what are your hobbies?" Bad question, Monica. "I don't have any." "Aha. None at all?" "No." I work, Monica, and I think about work, and I freak out about work, and I think about how much I think about work, and I freak out about how much I think about how much I think about work, and I think about how freaked out I get about how much I think ..
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Ned Vizzini |
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ed2097b
|
People don't make good Anchors, though, Craig. They change. The people here are going to change.
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Ned Vizzini |
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2b2f359
|
The party line is that some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle,
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Ned Vizzini |
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a6187dd
|
Run. Eat. Drink. Eat more. Don't throw up. Instead, take a piss. Then take a crap. Wipe your butt. Make a phone call. Open a door. Rid your bik. Ride in a car. Ride in a subway. Talk. Talk to people. Read. Read maps. Make maps. Make art. Talk about your art. Sell your art. Take a test. Get into a school. Celebrate. HAve a party. Write a thank-you note to someone. Hug your mom. Kiss your dad. Kiss your little sister. Make out with Noelle. Ma..
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Ned Vizzini |
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a300eff
|
Good. Because right now I don't have you pegged as a yuppie. You're something else. I'm not sure what you are, but I'm going to find out." "Cool."
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Ned Vizzini |
|
b7bd7a3
|
It's funny how people ask that as soon as they get you on the phone. I think it's a byproduct of cell phones: people--girls and moms especially--want to nail you down in physical space. The fact is that you could be anywhere on a cell phone and it shouldn't be important where you are. But it becomes the first thing people ask.
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Ned Vizzini |