Tahereh Mafi

Kenji snorts.__hat__ because you__e not fragile,_ Kenji says. __f anything, everyone needs to protect themselves from you. You__e like a freaking beast,_ he says. Then adds, __ mean, you know__ike, a cute beast. A little beast that tears shit up and breaks the earth and sucks the life out of people.

Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kenji?" me?

Kengi?""Yeah?"I take a deep breath. Try to count the stars. "What am I going to do?""About what?"I hesitate. "About everything."Kenji makes a strange sound. "Shit if I know.""I don't want to do this without you," I whisper.He leans back. "Who said you're going to do anything without me?"My heart skips a few beats. I stare at him."What?" he asks. Raises his eyebrows. "You're surprised?""You'll fight with me?" I ask him, hardly breathing. "Fight back with me? Even if it's with Warner?"Kenji smiles. Looks up at the sky. "Hell yeah," he says. "Really?""I'm here for you, kid. That's what friends are for.

So,' he says. 'When's the big day? Have you set a date yet?''What?' I startle. 'For what?''For the day you're going to stop being such a dumbass,' he says shooting me a sharp look.'Oh.' I cringe. Kick at the air. 'Yeah, that'll probably never happen.''Yeah, you're probably right.''Shut up.

Alice couldn__ explain why, exactly, but she knew now that things had changed between them. Oliver had become her friend in an absolute, uncomplicated way. She was done fighting him, and he was done lying to her.

Comamandering is not a word.It has letters, doesn't it? Sounds like a word to me.

Are you out of your goddamn mind? You think we can take on two hundred soldiers? I know I am an extremely attractive man, J, but I am not Bruce Lee.___ho__ Bruce Lee?___ho__ Bruce Lee?_ Kenji asks, horrified. __h my God. We can__ even be friends anymore.___hy? Was he a friend of yours?___ou know what,_ he says, __ust stop. Just__ can__ even talk to you right now.

And I've fallen.So hard.I've hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have I felt this. Nothing like this. I've felt shame and cowardice, weakness and strength. I've known terror and indifference, self-hate and general disgust. I've seen things that cannot be unseen.And yet I've known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching.Love is a heartless bastard.

It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.

There is nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. Grieve nothing in this transitory world," he says softly.

I love walking into a bookstore. It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.

I spent my life folded between the pages of books.In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.

We're too different now. We want different things. And this?" I say nodding at our hands. "All this managed to prove is that you are extremely good at turning me off

Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable?

So that's it?" Kenji says. "You just like him for his personality, huh?""What?""All of this," Kenji says, waving a hand in the air, "has nothing to do with him being all sexy and shit and him being able to touch you all the time?""You think Warner is sexy?""That is not what I said.

Because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one.

The words get easier the moment you stop fearing them.

Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell.