Promise me we'll stay together, okay?" His eyes are once again the clear blue of a perfectly transparent pool. They are eyes to swim in, to float in, forever. "You and me." "I promise," I say. Behind us the door creaks open, and I turn around, expecting Raven, just as a voice cuts through the air: "Don't believe her." The whole world closes around me, like an eyelid: For a moment, everything goes dark. I am falling. My ears are full of rushing; I have been sucked into a tunnel, a place of pleasure and chaos. My head is about to explode. He looks different. He is much thinner, and a scar runs from his eyebrow all the way down to his jaw. On his neck, just behind his left ear, a small tattooed number curves around the three-pronged scar that fooled me, for so long, into believing he was cured. His eyes-once a sweet, melted brown, like syrup-have hardened. Now they are stony, impenetrable. Only his hair is the same: that auburn crown, like leaves in autumn. Impossible. I close my eyes and reopen them: the boy from a dream, from a different lifetime. A boy brought back from the dead. Alex.
Lauren Oliver
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KRISTEN ASHLEY Through it all, I stare at the boy on the throne. He maintains his mask. Jaw clenched, lips pressed ... VICTORIA AVEYARD Zhian, is that you? I focus the words on the clay jar above Darian. The reply comes li... JESSICA KHOURY After a while Mary said, “Zsadist?” “Yeah?” “What are those markings... J.R. WARD Tell me it's not true." He sighed. "Fine. It's not true." ... And yet... "Are yo... KATHLEEN PEACOCK He wanted you to be the small, quiet girl from Abnegation," Four says softly. "He hurt you because y... VERONICA ROTH It’s just you always…” “Run,” I finish for him… I gaze up at him. Soft light... AMANDA BOUCHET Right," Chaol said. "So you're just...memorizing that information now?" "If you're sugges... SARAH J. MAAS Eli . . .” I rasped. I lost track of where his kisses landed, where his fingers touched, and grew ... NADèGE RICHARDS She gave his hand a small squeeze. "Jason, if we're going to try this then I'd like to take thi... R.L. 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More Lauren Oliver
You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes". LAUREN OLIVER A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets. LAUREN OLIVER I don't know where to go. I don't know what comes now." "Don't worry," Will said. "We'll figur... LAUREN OLIVER We wanted the freedom to love. We wanted the freedom to choose. Now we have to fight for it. LAUREN OLIVER I know that the whole point—the only point—is to find the things that matter, and hold on t... LAUREN OLIVER Quizá para ti hay un mañana. Quizá para ti hay mil mañanas, o tres mil, o diez mil, tanto t... LAUREN OLIVER And then, just at that moment, when I'm no longer sure if I'm dreaming or awake or walking some vall... LAUREN OLIVER In a world without love, this is what people are to each other: values, benefits, and liabilities, n... LAUREN OLIVER Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of y... 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LAUREN OLIVER Las buenas amigas guardan los secretos; las amigas íntimas te ayudan a no contarlos. LAUREN OLIVER Could it be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On a Friday?” I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Did y... LAUREN OLIVER I thought the Invalids were beasts; I thought they would rip me apart. But these people saved me, an... LAUREN OLIVER Then someone knocks on the door, very clearly, four times. I pull away from Lena quickly. "What... LAUREN OLIVER That's when I realized that certain moments go on forever. Even after they're over they still go on,... LAUREN OLIVER There is only what you want and what happens. There is only grabbing on and holding tight in the dar... LAUREN OLIVER The secret is,” I say, whispering right into his ear, “that yours was the best kiss I’ve ever ... LAUREN OLIVER Most of us won't see one another after graduation, and even if we do it will be different. We'll<... LAUREN OLIVER But maybe happiness isn't in the choosing. 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LAUREN OLIVER The sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumpe... LAUREN OLIVER I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and ... LAUREN OLIVER Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing t... LAUREN OLIVER So many things become beautiful when you really look. LAUREN OLIVER That's all I want. Just you and me. Always. LAUREN OLIVER Hearts are fragile things. That's why you have to be so careful. LAUREN OLIVER The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t. LAUREN OLIVER I run for I don't know how long. Hours, maybe, or days. Alex told me to run. So I run. You have to u... LAUREN OLIVER Yeah, but our choices are limited. We choose from a list that they chose for us." She said. "We... 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LAUREN OLIVER And you can't love, not fully, unless you are loved in return. LAUREN OLIVER The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own. LAUREN OLIVER It's funny, isn't it? When you are young you just want to be old, and then later you wish you could ... LAUREN OLIVER This is the past: It drifts, it gathers. If you are not careful, it will bury you. This is half the ... LAUREN OLIVER I don’t like that smell,” Julian says quietly. If he were less well trained, and less careful, h... LAUREN OLIVER This is the world we live in, a world of safety and happiness and order, a world without love. ... LAUREN OLIVER The devil stole into the Garden of Eden. He carried with him the disease— amor deliria ... LAUREN OLIVER It’s hard not to be afraid while I’m still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn’t touched m... LAUREN OLIVER Things weren’t always as good as they are now. In school we learned that in the old days, the dark... LAUREN OLIVER For all the people who have infected me with amor deliria nervosa in the past - you know who yo... LAUREN OLIVER That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you wo... LAUREN OLIVER She knew that this day, this feeling, couldn't last forever. Everything passed; that was partly why ... LAUREN OLIVER I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to ... LAUREN OLIVER Everything looks stark and vivid and frozen, as though drawn precisely and outlined in ink - parents... LAUREN OLIVER Everything has taken on a strange, distant quality - the sounds of running and shouting outside get ... LAUREN OLIVER His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams. LAUREN OLIVER We'll walk together holding hands, and kiss in broad daylight, and love each other as much as we wan... LAUREN OLIVER Nothing has ever been so painful or delicious as being so close to him and being unable to do anythi... LAUREN OLIVER His eyes are blazing with light, more light than all the lights in every city in the whole world, mo... LAUREN OLIVER I know the rules. I've been living here longer than you have." He cracks a smile then. He nudge... LAUREN OLIVER They haven't killed us yet," I say, and I imagine that one day I will fly a plane over Portland, ove... LAUREN OLIVER ....love and desire enjoy a symbiotic relationship, meaning that one cannot exist without the other.... LAUREN OLIVER This is what I want. This is the only thing I've ever wanted. Everything else—every single second ... LAUREN OLIVER I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse l... LAUREN OLIVER Alex loved books. He was the one who first introduced me to poetry. That's another reason I can't re... LAUREN OLIVER I told you," he whispers back. I can feel his breath just tickling the space behind my ear, making m... LAUREN OLIVER This is the strange way of the world, that people who simply want to love are instead forced to beco... LAUREN OLIVER Who knows? Maybe they’re right. Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings. Maybe love is a disease... LAUREN OLIVER How can someone have the power to shatter you to dust--and also to make you feel so whole? LAUREN OLIVER My heart shoots into my throat every time I think I see his loping walk, or catch sight of some flop... LAUREN OLIVER i feel like a curtain has dropped away and i'm seeing people for who they really are, different, and... LAUREN OLIVER I want to help you,' I say to Juliet, though I know that I can't make her understand, not like this.... LAUREN OLIVER And a face above mine, white and beautiful, eyes as large as the moon. You saved me. A hand o... LAUREN OLIVER Be honest: Are you surprised that I didn't realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long... LAUREN OLIVER So are you going to be my knight in shining armor or what?' Kent does a little bow. 'You ... LAUREN OLIVER I'm not with Rob," I say quickly. "Not anymore." "You're not?" He's staring at me so intensely... LAUREN OLIVER That's the thing about best friends. That's what they do. They keep you from spinning off the edge. LAUREN OLIVER That's the way I feel, at least: like there's a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of... LAUREN OLIVER I've never really thought about it before, but it's a miracle how many kinds of light there are in t... LAUREN OLIVER And I guess that's when it starts to hit me: the whole point is, you do what you can. LAUREN OLIVER The last laugh, the last cup of coffee, the last sunset, the last time you jump through a sprinkler,... LAUREN OLIVER The butterflies are working their way up from my stomach into my head, making me feel dizzy, and I t... LAUREN OLIVER No one can tell us no. No one can make us stop. We have picked each other, and the rest of the world... LAUREN OLIVER For a second we just stand there in silence. Then, suddenly, Alex is back, easy and smiling aga... LAUREN OLIVER The idea—the fact of it, the fact that he even noticed and thought about me for more than one seco... LAUREN OLIVER What does it feel like to be infected?" "I-- I can't describe it." I force the words out. Can't... LAUREN OLIVER I’m used to a feeling of doubleness, of thinking one thing and having to do another, a constant tu... LAUREN OLIVER This is the past: It drifts, it gathers. If you are not careful, it will bury you. LAUREN OLIVER I wonder what Lena is doing now. I always wonder what Lena is doing. Rachel, too: both my girls, my ... LAUREN OLIVER The dagger pin is all I have left. It is comfort and pain, both, because it reminds me of all I’ve... LAUREN OLIVER This is how Tack and Raven work: It’s their private language of push and return, argument and conc... LAUREN OLIVER