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0863a88
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It came down to the smallest things, really, that a person could do to say I'm sorry, to say it's okay, to say I forgive you. The tiniest of declarations that built, one on top of the other, until there was something solid beneath your feet. And then... and then. Who knew?
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Sara Zarr |
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b02742d
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It's as if once you hit high school, you're programmed, like a robot, to be an asshole to your parents.
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high-school
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Sara Zarr |
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e37fb7d
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don't mistake a new place for a new you.
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Sara Zarr |
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3cf6b6a
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Don't ask me how I am,' I blurt. 'Please.' I want to keep feeling good. Just because the lights are on doesn't mean I have to look.
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Sara Zarr |
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fc26f9d
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A know a place called New Beginnings, but I don't think it works quite like that. You can't just erase everything that came before.
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Sara Zarr |
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2bca588
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Sometimes you want to hear your own mother's voice.
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Sara Zarr |
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0607fb2
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I understand that you can never have the whole picture; inevitably, there's stuff you don't know, can't know. But when it comes to Cameron I always want more than I have, would like to be able to take hold of at least one or two more pieces, if only because I'm convinced there are parts of myself inside them.
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Sara Zarr |
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bd9873a
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I'm remembering how this works. How life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong or could go worng, and complaints about the world around you. How a person you're excited about can remind you there's stuff going on beyond... routine oil changes and homework. Stuff that matters. Stuff to look forward to.
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Sara Zarr |
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69e0726
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I don't yell back at my mother. When I'm angry or scared or upset, I don't yell. I stay quiet. I've seen how she is, how she would get with Kent and with me and with other people, life if someone at the pharmacy got in the wrong line or asked too long a question, or if someone on the bus accidentally bumped her. I've watched her my whole life, the way people react to her. It doesn't actually help you get what you want, yelling and being lik..
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Sara Zarr |
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7c8fda2
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Life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong, and complaints about the world around you.
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Sara Zarr |
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6e07d4e
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I write. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks. As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's..
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grief
sorrow
life
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Sara Zarr |
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bc24479
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I should have shouted and wave my hands in case the driver looked back, but mostly in life I don't protest things. I go along, or at least I make people believe I'm going along. Sometimes it's better if people think you're dumb or don't care.
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Sara Zarr |
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823e9b9
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The world was full of beauty. She wanted to grab hold of it and take it down into her bones. Yet always it seemed beyond her grasp. Sometimes only by a little, like now. The thinnest membrane. Usually, though, by miles. She couldn't expect to be that kind of happy all the time. She knew that. But sometimes you could. Sometimes you should be allowed a tiny bit of joy that should stay with you for more than five minutes. That wasn't too m..
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Sara Zarr |
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47a7284
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The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he'd done for me and what we'd been through together, even if that loyalty was a ghost.
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Sara Zarr |
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73afebd
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This was a memory I wanted to keep, whole, and recall again and again. When I was fifty years old I wanted to remember this moment on the porch, holding hands with Cameron while he shared himself with me. I didn't want it to be something on the fringes of my memory like so many other things about Cameron and myself.
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Sara Zarr |
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9299f4b
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I know I shouldn't say this--I know it as surely as I know the earth is round and beats are evil--and yet here it comes: "It's not too late to change your mind."
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Sara Zarr |
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9a8ccf0
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Because love, love never finishes.
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Sara Zarr |
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ee08874
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Ethan couldn't possibly understand it, what Cameron and I meant to each other and how different it was from anything like a romance or a crush.
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Sara Zarr |
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36441e4
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If two or three of the most important people in your life are telling you something and you are resisting it with everything you have, there is a distinct possibly [sic] that what they are saying is true.
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Sara Zarr And Tara Altebrando |
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d43d2f4
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It's like a Venn diagram of tragedy.
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tragedy
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Sara Zarr |
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313c96e
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There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.
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inspirational
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Sara Zarr |
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f56e6f1
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Was it only because he happened to be the one who came along when he did? Could it have been anyone? Or was there something about him, that I liked and cared at?
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Sara Zarr |
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30a8fa9
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I tried his cell over and over but he never answered. Then I'd call just to hear his voice on the outgoing message, until eventually that was gone too.
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Sara Zarr |
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c7c7468
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Okay, then, what was he like? Just give me something to go on so that I have a shot at him!' 'A shot at him? Are you on an elk hunt?
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relationships
humor
teenagers
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Sara Zarr |
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36379d5
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Sometimes trust isn't something you can just choose to do even if it makes sense. All my life the only reliable person, the one I could count on, the one who hasn't abandoned me, is me.
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Sara Zarr |
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eefd68b
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We'd need a miracle," he says. "A real one. Do you think those happen anymore?"
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Sara Zarr |
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c62b8d8
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It makes me think of Lazarus. He must have had those shadows after his miracle. You don't spend time in the tomb without it changing you, and everyone who was waiting for you to come out.
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Sara Zarr |
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f64ff34
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This is the last time, the girl thought, that she would remember these things. If they floated back to her again, she would paddle away. When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.
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Sara Zarr |
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a407f20
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Katy skipped over, her low-rise jeans threatening to fall off her skinny hips. With some girls, that was a sexy look. With Katy, it made you nervous.
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jeans
teenagers
sexy
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Sara Zarr |
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8268b2c
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I get a message from my dad. In the mood I'm in, I tear up to see his name in my inbox, and imagine him down the hall in bed, propped on pillows, emailing me. "Hon, Enjoyed our gelato date the other night. I just want to say I'm proud of you for a lot of reasons. Also, I've attached a picture of my foot." He's such a weirdo goofball. I love him."
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lauren
funny-and-random
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Sara Zarr |
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b3179aa
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Love is just a word we use to describe what boils down to a selfish and temporary state of happiness.
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Sara Zarr |
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651b345
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Apparently, the world was perfect in 1958.
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Sara Zarr |
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462d6d5
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I, Deanna Lambert, belong to no one and no one belongs to me. I don't know what to do.
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Sara Zarr |
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6517664
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I don't want these memories to become slippery, to disapper into the thin air of life the way most things seem to. I want them to stick- even the bad ones-so I repeat them often.
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Sara Zarr |
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7d328c9
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I got this strong feeling of missing him, like he was someone who I loved who had died and gone away, someone who was mostly a memory. I wanted to grab him and say okay, I was sorry about Tommy, it was just a stupid mistake and I knew I'd hurt him and I wish I hadn't. Because I did love him. I did.
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Sara Zarr |
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1f36cbb
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Life is one of those experiments meant to be conducted in a stimulating, messy environment.
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Sara Zarr Tara Altebrando |
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606f941
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Or she could return to the beginning, to the first moment she`d started to feel like playing wasn`t for her anymore. But she coudn`t rehash every hurt, every disappointment, every moment that felt like betrayal. And expect to arrive anywhere good.
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Sara Zarr |
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eb2b62c
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I remember sitting here," he said, "and watching you over there." He pointed, but I didn't have to look. Before Cameron and I got close, I spent a lot of lunches the same way, starting off eating and reading on my special bench on the other side of the yard, followed by walking the perimeter of the playground, balancing on the small cement curb that separated the blacktop from the landscaping, around and around and around, hoping I looked b..
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Sara Zarr |
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7327d15
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Mom always says that doubt is just another way of expressing faith.
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Sara Zarr |
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b3024a5
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Because we were having a family crisis." " family had a crisis?" "Yes, Ethan. My family. Had a crisis. A crisis was had by my family."
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Sara Zarr |
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8754279
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There are things I want to remember about Cameron Quick that I can't entirely, like the pajamas he wore when he used to sleep over, and his favorite cereal, or how it felt to hold his hand as we walked home from school in third grade. I want to remember exactly how we became friends in the first place, a definite starting line that I can visit again and again. He's a story I want to know from page one.
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Sara Zarr |
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fb70b80
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He said I didn't need to save him." "But you want to." "Yeah. But I can't. Right?" "Probably not. Usually not."
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Sara Zarr |
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8e34f22
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Love. That was the piece that had been missing, way before Prague. That was that piece that had been missing in her life until Will came and made her feel it, for their work together and for the beauty and also for him, though it was hard sometimes to separate those things. Maybe she didn`t love Will like she thought. Or couldn't in this moment. But what they'd done together, what had been open by becoming so close, she could still love th..
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Sara Zarr |
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8511d53
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What did it feel like, I wondered, to be kissed like that right out in public? Not like some passionate tongue-wrestling thing, just a kiss to declare: We are each other's. I'd never been kissed like that, not by him or anyone else. No one had declared me his, not for the whole world to see, anyway.
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Sara Zarr |