young-adult-fiction

What I know about you, Henry,_ he said. __s that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

I get that. For you, it__ more than following a bunch of rules__o sex, no booze, no swear words, pray every night and twice on Sunday.

I couldn__ stop crying because it was so intimate, in that way I always thought being physical with him would feel. If someone had walked in they might have thought Henry was barely touching me. I knew the truth of it.He was laying me open and bare to him and to God.There wasn__ a more intimate act. I would never recover from this.

New rules__e needed new rules. No one opens the main doors but me. No one leaves the property without me. No one goes outside without letting me know. I had these horrible images in my head of kids being restrained against their wills, of kids crying my name out, begging me to help them when I was powerless. Desperate times_ Lord, my soul called out. Lord_somehow that__ as far as I could get. I didn__ have the words.

Sometimes, in the stillness of my room, my mom__ voice came to me, repeating things she__ said for months. Like, __y skin is melting off my face, isn__ it?_ And, __y whole body feels dead from the crap they__e pouring into me. Do I look green to you?_ And, __hen I__ naked, I can see my heart beating.

My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. She__ set her coffee down, making a noise that made me look her way. I__ begun to notice her less and less often, like her colors were fading and blending in with walls. She was shrinking. Or maybe her sphere of influence in the family was shrinking. My dad glanced at her, too, and then wrote something on a napkin. He slid it across the counter to me__on__ worry. Come home in one piece. Have fun and act like a sixteen-year-old for a change.

It was an oddly satisfying idea to feel bereft as I left my mother this time. We only feel bereft when we__e deprived of something meaningful.

With a damp palm, I turned the knob and cracked open the door. She was asleep in her freshly made bed. I can__ explain how relieved I felt for this simple mercy. She was here and safe on clean sheets.

How would Elijah ever understand a life that is dark more than light? Or a shadow of someone who follows her around, and when she least expects it, taps her on the back and asks, where are you going, Seraphina?

The butterflies swirl again in Sera__ stomach. Perhaps they have brought along fireflies too, to light up her soul.

He reflects on all the times he thought she wasn__ sure of her feelings for him, when perhaps she might__e been taking a leisurely stroll across Elijah__ heart, leaving footprints behind that he__ never seen.

She smells like spring and flowers and rain, even though it__ winter. Sometimes, he thinks he loves her so much that his mind is unable to distinguish between love and obsession. Which is worse?

I__ felt this before, when my granddad was in the hospital before he died. We all camped out in the waiting room, eating our meals together, most of us sleeping in the chairs every night. Family from far-flung places would arrive at odd hours and we__ all stand and stretch, hug, get reacquainted, and pass the babies around.A faint, pale stream of beauty and joy flowed through the heavy sludge of fear and grief. It was kind of like those puddles of oil you see in parking lots that look ugly until the sun hits them and you see rainbows pulling together in the middle of the mess.And wasn__ that just how life usually felt__ confusing swirl of ugly and rainbow?

I want to say that yes, it was worth it; that I could suffer through pain and torture for her and go through a lot more than what Puck and his friends are capable of, and I can do it for all of eternity; suffer, until she realizes how much I love her. But she__ gone before I can say any of it. I wait till she__ left.And then I reach for my wallet.Hidden inside one of the flaps is a piece of paper that barely conceals a razorblade. Its frayed edges still have my blood on them. The blood is from the previous cuts I__e made and I carry it around like a trophy, like Dexter carries around his victims_ blood on slides. I use that blade to give myself a cut and it starts bleeding. Right away, it feels as though the pressure that has been building inside me ever since that confrontation with Puck is lifted. I feel free again.

There__ nothing.Nothing to hold on to while the current takes me.Whatever I might have had until today, I__e lost.I feel my love for her, swelling; bloating into something that__ about to explode, like an abscess that__ been allowed to rot for too long, but the pain drowns it so completely I know I__ never coming back out. This feeling, that you__e choking and that your body is underwater, immersed in the ocean, a dense flood that overpowers your breathing abilities, and your will to survive gets drowned right along with it. And as I__ drowning I see her face and hear her voice__nd it doesn__ give me hope, it terrifies me. I__ terrified because I know she__ going to be the death of me. I__ terrified because I know I won__ be able to cope. I__ terrified because the darkness is the only true friend I__e ever had and if it wants to embrace me I don__ have the power to make it stop.

When I try to achieve greatness, it spits on me the night before.

Words exist only in theory. And then one ordinary day you run into a word that exists only in theory. And you meet it face to face. And then that word becomes someone you know. That word becomes someone you hate. And you take that word with you wherever you go. And you can't pretend it isn't there.

We both knew the place we were at and what that meant. We both felt the regret and the loss. We both knew that without me, none of it would have been possible. Without me, everything would be different. Without me, we wouldn't have been there... lying in that bed in the first place.