memorable moments number six~ red glove

Sunday 22 January 2012

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page 1: 
"I don't know whether it's day or night when the girl gets up to leave. Her minnow silver dress swishes against the tops of her thighs like Christmas tinsel as she opens the hotel door.

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page 2:
"'You ready for some breakfast?'
'Just coffee, I think. I'll make it.' I push myself up and pad over to the complimentary pot. There's a bag of grounds, sugar, and some powdered creamer sitting on a plastic tray.
'Cassel, how many times do I have to tell you that it isn't safe to drink out of those things? Someone could have been brewing meth in it.' Mom frowns. She always worries about the weirdest things. Hotel coffeepots. Cell phones. Never normal stuff, like the police. 'I'll order us both up coffee from the kitchen.'
'They could be brewing meth there, too.' I say, but she ignores me.


"Her smile is big enough that I almost want to smile along with her.
That's my mom."

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page 5:
"I should have told her I loved her back then. Back when it would have meant something."


"Waiting is the hardest thing about any con job. The moments slip by and your hands start to sweat, anticipating what's coming. Your mind wanders. You're all keyed up from adrenaline, but there's nothing to do.
Distraction leads to disaster. Mom's rule."

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page 6:
"People start yelling. Yeah, because a guy with hose over his head is never the good guy. He is, in fact, the stereotype - maybe even the archetype - of a bad guy."

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page 11:
"Sunlight makes my brain feel like it's throbbing inside my skull."

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page 15:
"I park my Benz in the seniors' lot, which is much closer to the dorms than where underclassmen are forced to leave their cars. I feel a little smug until I shut off the engine and it makes an odd metallic cough, like maybe it just gave up the ghost."

"Over the doorway of the large brick building hands a hand-lettered sign: WELCOME FRESHMEN. The trees rustle with a light wind, and I am overcome with a feeling of nostalgia for something I haven't yet lost."

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page 18:
"Maybe it would be safe to call her, just to talk for a few minutes. Just to hear her voice.
I want to, so badly that I force myself to call my brother Barron instead, just to remind me what's real. He told me to call once I settled in, anyway. I figure this is settled enough.
'Hey,' he says, picking up after only one ring. 'How's my favorite brother?' Every time I hear his voice, I get the same knot in my stomach. He made me into a killer. He used me, but he doesn't remember that. He thinks we're thick as thieves, hand in glove. All the things I made him think.
Blowback ate away so many of his memories that he believes the fake ones I carefully forged into his notebooks - the ones of us being close. And that makes him the only person I'm sure I can trust.
Pathetic, right?"

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page 19:
"'Roger dodger. Mission heard and accepted,'..."

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page 21:
"'Boys,' she says. 'We're trying to be an example to all the new students, now that we're seniors, aren't we?'
'Can't we be bad examples?'"

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page 22:
"'Not everyone's like Daneca.' I say.
'No one is like Daneca.' Sam has that slightly dazed look of a man in love. 'I think it's hard for her, you know. Because she cares so much, and most people barely care at all. Including me, I guess.'"
Daneca used to annoy me with all her bleeding-heart crap. I figured there was no point in changing a world that didn't want to be changed. But I don't think Sam would appreciated me saying that out loud. And I don't even know if I believe it anymore.
'Maybe you could changer her mind about the horror genre,' I say instead. 'You know, show her some classic stuff. Rent Frankenstein. Do a dramatic reading of 'The Raven'. Ladies love 'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token that lie they soul has spoken!' Who can resist that?'
Sam doesn't even smile.
'Okay, I say, holding up my hands in the universal sign of surrender. 'I'll stop.'"

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page 27:
"It's amazing how rich kids get itchy when they can't spend money fast enough. 
Just like criminals get itchy when we're not working all the angles."

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page 28:
"Greg, however, narrows his eyes and smiles down at me like he's daring me to start something.
I'd love to wipe that smug expression off his face. First, though, I'd have to get up off my knees."

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page 31:
"...'The future's going to be here sooner than you think.'"


"Outside our window the grass of the quad shines in the moonlight, like it's made of metal blades."

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page 32:
"'We're off to a good start,' I say. 'Fashionably late.'
'Just doing our part to keep their expectations low,' says Sam.

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page 34:
"'But if you're here-,' I start, not sure how I can finish.
'It hurts not to be near you,' she says quietly, carefully, like the words cost her something.


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page 35:
"'I'm sorry,' I say, which isn't part of the script. It slips out. I don't know how to deal with this. I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain."

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page 39:
"I see her face as we leave... 
Someone should warn her never to play poker."

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page 41:
"When he speaks, his voice has the cadences of someone used to speaking to a congregation. I'd bet there's a preacher somewhere in his family."

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page 42:
"Hunt's contempt is so obvious that I add a mental note about him to my imaginary profile: He thinks I have it easy, which means he thinks he had it hard."

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page 44:
"It's a relief to tell a lie this big; I feel like I'm daring them to contradict it."

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page 54:
"We're so sorry, he's going to say. We're so sorry.
But I'm sorriest of all."


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page 56:
"I kneel in front of his body, but I have no words for Philip. I don't want his forgiveness. I don't forgive him."

"'Oh, shut up,' she says automatically. Then, 'Sorry, I didn't -' 
'Everyone has to stop saying they're sorry, ' I say, maybe a tiny bit too loudly.
Sam looks around the room in a slightly panicked way. 'Uh, I don't know how to tell you this, but all these people are going to tell you that. That's, like, pretty much the point of funerals.'
The corner of my mouth lifts. Having them around makes everything a little better, even this."


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page 57:
"The funeral director comes in with another mountain of flowers, Mom trailing him. She's crying, mascara bleeding down her face theatrically as she points to the spot where he's allowed to put the arrangement...
I'm not sure what to say. Mom's putting on a show, but that doesn't mean she's not actually sad. It's just that she isn't letting her grief get in the way of her performance.


"'I'm Sam Yu.' Sam extends his hand, leaning over so that he's in front of Daneca.
Barron shakes it. His suit is a lot nicer than mine, and his dark hair is clipped, short and tidy. He looks like the good boy he's never been.


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page 58:
"A minister walks up to the lectern off to one side and then says a couple of words to my mother. I don't recognize him. Mom's not exactly the religious type, but she hugs him like she's ready to be baptized with the next bowl of water she comes across.


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page 59:
"I wonder what Philip would think of his own funeral. He'd be sad that Maura couldn't even bother to bring his son to see him for the last time. He'd be embarrassed by Mom and probably pissed that I'm even here."


"'Philip Sharpe was a soldier in God's army,' says the minister. 'Now he marches with the angels.'
The words echo in my head unpleasantly.
'Philip's brother, Barron, will join me at the lectern and say a few words about his beloved departed sibling.'
Barron walks to the front and begins telling a story about him and Philip climbing a mountain together and the various meaningful things they learned about each other along the way. It's touching. It's also completely plagiarized from a book we had when we were kids."


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page 64:
"I'm staring at the fabric of the bench, wondering how many people have wept on it. I'm wondering about whether the inside is crusted with salt, like a blanket that's been soaking in seawater. I'm going a little crazy."


"...'I'm not - I can't -' I shake my head to indicate the enormity of the things I can't do. For one, I can't tell her the truth about my feelings for her. For another, I'm not sure I can keep lying.


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page 66:
"'Okay. Do you ever feel so angry that you think you could devour the whole world and still not be satisfied? Like you don't know how to stop feeling that way and it scares you, but that just makes you angry too?'
'I thought we weren't going to talk about my feelings,' I say, trying for lightness, because I know exactly what she means. It's like she was speaking my own thoughts aloud.
She looks at the floor, the corner of her lips tilted up. 'I'm not.'
'Yeah,' I say slowly. 'Yeah.'
'Some days I just hate everything.' She looks at me earnestly. 
'Me too,' I say.


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page 67:
"Lila leans forward swiftly. Her lips are soft on my cheek. 
I close my eyes. Her breath is warm and it would only take the smallest shift of my mouth, just a slight acquiescence, for us to be kissing."


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page 68:
"She starts to cry, not the loud keening from before but the quiet sobs that shake her whole body."


"The burial takes place in the rain. Barron and I share an umbrella, which means that water constantly streams down the back of my neck. Barron puts his arm over my shoulders and I lean against him for a moment, like he really is my older brother who wants to protect me. The ceremony is subdued, since all the eulogies have been given. Even my mother's tears appear to be wrung out.
Or maybe even she can't compete with the weather."


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page 69:
"Mom stops me on the way out of the room. Her eyes are outlined in the gray remainder of her makeup, making them look sunken. Haunted."


"I want her away from me. I already feel too much. I can't bear feeling anything more."


"I say nothing. I don't trust myself to speak."


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page 70:
"I feel better, but also worse here. Better because the memories are so close. Worse because of the memories themselves."


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page 71:
"'A wonderful piece of cinema verité,' I declare. 'It is going to be my new life. And I am going to get a badge and a gun and hunt down evildoers.' I am flooded with a sense of well-being. Everything sounds perfect. Like a dream I don't want to wake from.
'Did you just say 'evildoers'?' Daneca asks, flopping onto the couch next to us. 'Did you know Betty the Butcher is upstairs? And she's wearing a gold mask. That means it's got to be true! Killing her last husband must have rotted her nose off.'
I point to the shots I have lined up. She takes one. I feel quite magnanimous. Also kind of light-headed. 'That's what I plan on calling them when I apprehend them. Evildoers, that is, not Betty. I would call only Betty by the name Betty. Well, I call her Aunt Betty, but still.


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page 73:
"'Magic gives you a lot of choices,' Grandad says. 'Most of them are bad.'


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page 105:
"Here's the thing about influencing a group to do what you want. It's a lot easier if what you want and what they want line up."


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page 108:
"When she looks at me, I see the reflection of a different self in her eyes. Someone I long to be."


"I look at the concrete path beneath me, at the desiccated bodies of earthworms who crawled out of the ground in the rain, only to get scorched by the sun." 
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page 110:
"He nods sagely. 'Get anywhere with those files?'
I shake my head. 'There goes my career in law enforcement, I guess.'
Sam snorts and starts hooking up with PlayStation to the tiny portable television he got for his birthday. "When you're done with that, you want to shoot some bad guys?'
'Evildoers,' I say. 'Yeah. Definitely.'
It should bother me to point my controller at the screen and watch pixelated guys fall over. It should remind me of Janssen or Philip and my hand should hesitate or something. I get the high score instead. After all, it's just a game."


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page 116:
"'I was ready to fire up the getaway car.' Sam grins. 'Doesn't she know that muggers don't wear ties?'
I straighten my collar. 'I'm a better class of criminal. A gentleman thief, if you will.'"


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page 122:
"'I'm good at what I do,' I say. 'Virtue is its own revenge.'
'It's own reward,' says Daneca, rolling her eyes. 'Virtue is its own reward.'
I grin. 'That's not the version I've heard.'"


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page 124:
"'We're going to see The Giant Spider Invastion,' Sam says, 'They're playing it at the Friday Rewind. It's a classic Bill Rebane film - the special effects crew created the giant spider by covering a Volkswagen Beetle in fake fur and using the taillights as its red glowing eyes.'
'What's better than that?' I ask.
No one can think of a thing.


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page 125:
"That night I dream I'm in a room of corpses, all of them wearing dresses and lipstick, sitting stiffly on couches. It takes me a moment to realize they're all my ex-girlfriends, their dead eyes glittering, their mouths barely moving as they whisper a list of my flaws.
He kisses like a fish, says my kindergarten girlfriend, Michiko Ishii. We'd meet behind a fat oak tree on the playground until we got caught by another girl who ratted us out. Her corpse is that of a very little girl; glassy eyes make her look like a doll.
He flirted with my friend, says the girl who ratted us out, Sofia Spiegel, who was technically also my girlfriend at the time.
He's a liar, says a girl from Atlantic City. The one in the silver dress.
Such a liar, says my eighth-grade girlfriend. I didn't tell her that I was going to Wallingford until after I left. I don't blame her for shill being mad.
After the party he pretended not to know me, says Emily Rogers, who, to be fair, pretended just as hard that I didn't exist after we'd spent the night rolling around on a pile of coats at Harvey Silverman's freshman-year house party.
He borrowed my car and totaled it, says Stephanie Douglas, a worker girl I met in Carney over the summer after I was sure I'd killed Lila. She was two years older than me and could knot the stem of a cherry with her tongue.
He never really loved me, says Audrey. He doesn't even know what love is.
I wake up while it's still dark outside. Rather than go back to sleep, i start on some homework. I'm tired of the dead ganging up on me. There's got to be a problem somewhere that wants solving.


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page 127: 
"Wallingford Preparatory prides itself on getting its young men and women ready not just for college but for their place in society. To that end, students not only have to attend all their classes - they also have to participate in two enriching after-school activities. This year mine are track in the fall and debate club in the spring. I like the feeling of running, the rush of adrenaline and the pounding of my feet on the pavement. I like that it's just me deciding how far to push myself. 
I also like thinking up ways to trick people into agreeing with me, but debate club doesn't start for many months.


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page 128:
Agent Jones and Agent Hunt are wearing mirrored sunglasses along with their dark suits and darker gloves, even though the weather is still unseasonably warm. I'm not sure they could be more unsubtle if they tried.
'Hello, Officers,' I say with a fake grin.
'Haven't heard from you in a while,' Agent Jones says. 'We got concerned.'
'Well, I had this funeral to go to, and then I had all this extra grieving to do. Really filled up my social calendar.' 


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page 128:
"He's either forgotten about me or is trying to forget."


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page 130:
"'I don't know,' I like. I have no idea where this line of questioning is going, but I don't like it.
'You could have a life outside of all this,' Agent Jones says. 'You could be on the right side of the law. You don't have to protect these people, Cassel.'
I am these people, I think, but his words make me fantasize for a moment about what it would be like to be a good guy, with a badge and a stainless reputation.
'We talked to your brother,' Agent Hunt says. 'He was very cooperative.'
'Barron?' I say, and burst our laughing. I let myself flop down onto the leather seat with relief. 'My brother is a compulsive liar. I'm sure he was cooperative. There is nothing he likes better than an audience.
Agent Jones looks embarrassed. Agent Hunt just seems pissed.


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page 134:
"Everyone wants to get out of a situation with dignity."


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page 136:
"The camera pulls back so that we can see the press pit in front of him. Lots of people in suits raising their hands like it's high school all over again, just waiting for the teacher to call on them."


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page 136:
"'It's just hard to listen to,' I say, which seems to be true, since I wasn't actually listening at all.
She nods her head, but there is a pin scratch line between her brows. I wait interminable minutes until I think I can safely turn to her and say, 'Be right back..."


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page 144:
"'He had a black-and-white film marathon, after which he wore a fedora.' She raises her brows, daring me to contradict her. 'For a month. In the middle of summer.'
I laugh.
'A fedora?' Sam says.
I remember sitting in the basement for hours, watching movie after movie of rough-voiced women and men in dapper suits with drinks in their gloved hands. When Lila's parents got divorced, she went to Paris with her father and came back smoking Gitanes and outlining her eyes in smudgy black kohl. It was like she'd stepped out of the movie I wanted to be in."


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page 145:
"In Carney, back then, I didn't care about blending in. I wasn't constantly trying to bluff my way into seeming like a better guy. I had no secrets I was desperate to keep. And Lila was brave and sure and unstoppable.
I wonder what the kid I was then would think of the people we are now."


"There are people, too, more than I expected, and a distant roar that promises even more than that."


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page 146:
"'Changing is what people do when they have no options left,' Lila says cryptically."


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page 147:
"A couple more blocks and the crowd becomes so thick that it's more like a tide we have been swept up in. We're a vein rushing blood toward the heart, a furnace of sun-warmed body heat, a herd barreling toward a cliff."


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page 150:
"The combination of heat and rebellion spreads like a ripple through the crowd, and suddenly bare fingers are waving in the air."


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page 181:
"I can't imagine that world. I don't think I'd fit in there."


"I stand up, understanding a dismissal when I hear one."


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page 186:
"She has the blank look of shock, eyes wide. Her hand is raised protectively as if words could be warded off."


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page 187:
Sam falls off his stool. I think he was trying to stand up and wasn't really thinking about it, but he winds up stumbling back as the stool crashes to the floor. His back hits the cabinet. The expression on his face is awful. He doesn't know her anymore. It cuts me to the bone because that's exactly how I'm afraid he'll look at me.


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page 189:
"'I never asked you what kind of worker you are,' Same says, flinging the words at me like a challenge.
'Yeah,' I say carefully. ' And I really appreciate that.'
'If I did...' Sam pauses. "If I did, would you tell me?'
'I hope so,' I say.
He's quiet then. We lie next to each other, twin corpses waiting for the burial.


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page 207:
"'A man may daydream of how he would spend a million dollars, but playing the same game with a billion dollars sours the fantasy. There are too many possibilities. The house he once wished for with all his heart is suddenly too small. The travel too cheap. He wanted to visit an island. Now he contemplates buying one. I remember you, Cassel. With all your heart you wanted to be one of us. Now you're the best of us.'"


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page 214:
"Power does not consist in striking hard or often, but in striking true."


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page 217:
"Today she's talking about the principle of momentum and how hard it is to stop something once it has been set in motion."


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page 218:
"'No, you didn't,' I say. 'That's why you lied to him.'
'Well, I was right, wasn't I?' she asks plaintively. She wants to be contradicted.
'I don't know,' I say.


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page 218:
"'... Everyone likes a little power, especially people who feel powerless.'


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page 233:
"Most people never report being conned, for three reasons. The first reason is that con artists don't usually leave a lot of evidence. If you don't really know who did this to you, there's no point in reporting them. The second reason is that usually you, the mark, agreed to do something shady. If you report the con artist, you have to report yourself along with him. But the third reason is the simplest and most compelling. Shame. You're the dummy who got conned.
No one wants to look stupid. No one wants to be thought of as gullible. So they hid how dumb and gullible they were. Con artists barely have to cover up at all, with marks so eager to cover up for them.


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page 238:
"... I feel unsteady. The world has already tilted. I can feel myself falling."


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page 244:
"I open my mouth to bargain with her, but I feel suddenly undone by despair. I am like a clockwork automaton whose gears just locked."


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page 246:
"No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke."


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page 252:
"It's just a matter of time."
Even in the light of day, the thought feels no less true.
Temptation is tempting.


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page 253:
Life's full of opportunities to make crappy decisions that feel good. And after the first one, the rest get a whole lot easier."


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page 255:
"The trees shake with a sudden gust of wind, and a few still-green maple leaves fall around me. I toe one with my booted foot. It doesn't look it, but it's already dead."


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page 261:
"My shirt is still wet with her tears."


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page 265:
"'When it rains, it pours,' Sam says."

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page 268:
"Lies work when they're simple. They usually work a lot better than the truth does. The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies."


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page 272:
"The concern in her voice is real enough to break my heart."


"'Baby,' she says in a harsh whisper, 'in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.'"

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page 273:
"Waking up in the middle of the day always leaves you with a slightly dazed feeling, as though you've stepped out of time. The light outside the windows is wrong."

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page 274:
"Gifts are very useful to con men. Gifts create a feeling of debt, an itchy anxiety that the recipient is eager to be rid of by repaying. So eager, in fact, that people will often overpay just to be relieved of it. A single spontaneously given cup of coffee can make a person feel obligated to sit through a lecture on a religion they don't care about. The gift of a tiny, wilted flower can make the recipient give to a charity they dislike. Gifts place such a heavy burden that even throwing away the gift doesn't remove the debt. Even if you hate coffee, even if you didn't want that flower, once you take it, you want to give something back. Most of all, you want to dismiss the obligation.


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page 275:
"I like to think it's the gratitude that makes her overgenerous, but I guess I'll never know. That's the problem with not trusting people - you never find out if they'd have helped you on their own.


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page 280:
"If I can resist this, I don't think I will have any resistance left."


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page 300:
"'I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage.'"


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page 303:
"'No trouble ever got fixed late at night,' he said. 'Midnight is for regrets.'"


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page 307:
"So what if I led the horse directly to water, I tell myself. It's not like I made him drink."

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page 308:
"The night air is like a slap in the face. It seems too early in the season for the temperature to have dropped so abruptly. Maybe it's just colder at three in the morning."


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page 315:
"'Death messes you up...'"


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page 325:
"I remind myself that this is what I wanted. When that doesn't work, I tell myself that I can survive on memories. The smell of Lila's skin, the way her eyes shine with mischief, the low rasp of her voice. It hurts to think of her, but I can't stop. It ought to hurt.
After all, hell is supposed to be hot."

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