Sarah Dessen: Likeness (page 4)

“Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible”

“I was so scared about being discovered, but nobody came. Nobody heard. In my own ears, though, my sobs sounded primal and scary, like something I would have turned off if I'd been able to.”

“But unfriendly is usually one of those things you pick up on right away. You know, like B. O. There's no hiding it if it's there.”

“I felt like I'd been swimming so hard, and the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn't there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers.”

“Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.”

“Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.”

“And don't change for a guy, ever," Leah added. "If they're worthy, they'll like you just the way you are.”

“It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities.”

“Now I felt like I was drifting, sucked down by an undertow, and too far out to swim back to the shore.”

“Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.”

“Relationships evolve, just like people do. Just because you know someone doesn't mean you know everything about them.”

“I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead, for the first time in a while, it felt like it already was full.”

“Just wait a second. We can't leave it like this." But this too, wasn't true. Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.”

“Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you'd planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even jsut alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can.”

“Man," he said. "You are, like, so impatient."”

“And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice.”

“Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stop it. There's just so much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up….”

“It’s funny how one summer can change everything. It must be something about the heat and the smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle, asphalt sizzling after late-day thunderstorms, the steam rising while everything drips around it. Something about long, lazy days and whirring air conditioners and bright plastic flip-flops from the drugstore thwacking down the street. Something about fall being so close, another year, another Christmas, another beginning. So much in one summer, stirring up like the storms that crest at the end of each day, blowing out all the heat and dirt to leave everything gasping and cool. Everyone can reach back to one summer and lay a finger to it, finding the exact point when everything changed. That summer was mine.”

“For two hours I'd felt myself stretching tighter and tighter, like a rubber band pulled to the point of snapping. And now, I could feel the smaller, weaker part of myself beginning to fray, tiny bits giving way before the big break.”