Quotes from book

Dreamland

“It's funny how someone's perception of you can be formed without you even knowing it.”

“All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.”

“If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.”

“It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.”

“I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.”

“I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.”

“I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell anyone. As long as I didn't say it aloud, it wasn't real.”

“I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.”

“If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.”

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

“We laughed ourselves silly, taking back our shared past, gently, piece by piece.”

“During this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through.”

“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.”

“I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket, bracing myself for the next hit, and feel something. Something grainy and small, sticking to the tips of my fingers: the sand from Commons Park.”

“Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't under­stand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.”

“What was the name of Pygmalion's sister?”

“I took his wildness from him and tried to fold it into myself, filling up the empty spaces all those second place finishes left behind.”

“Rogerson, I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, where would I find the pelagic zone?”

“See you in dreamland.”