Jesse Coste Quotes

“Other people cared a lot about what Jesse thought of them, but Seiji couldn’t picture Nicholas caring. Everyone liked Jesse better than Seiji, but Nicholas wouldn’t. Not even if, for some reason, Nicholas got to know Jesse and Jesse actually tried to be charming. Even then, Seiji was sure, though he didn’t have much basis for the certainty, that Nicholas would still like him better.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, Striking Distance

“Aiden rolled his eyes. “Oh my God, there are three of them.”

“There’s only one of me,” Jesse snapped. “I’m Jesse Coste.”

He tossed his head up high. Seiji had seen other people quail when faced with half the fury currently gleaming in Jesse’s blue eyes or contained in the arrogant lift of his chin.

“Don’t flip your hair at me, freshman,” Aiden sneered back. “I’m Aiden Kane.”

Aiden shook back his own light, bright, curling hair from his face and looked down his nose at Jesse.

“Who?” Jesse asked.

“Ask some of the Exton boys,” Aiden drawled. “I don’t remember their names, but I guarantee you they’ll know mine.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, Striking Distance

“Seiji was direly embarrassed by Nicholas’s presence, not to mention his appearance. He hadn’t wished to see Jesse again. If forced to, he would have preferred to see him while winning Olympic gold. Failing that, Seiji would’ve preferred to see Jesse literally anywhere other than here. In the middle of the woods, in a state of undress, with a companion who had apparently been raised by wolves and then abandoned by the pack for being too scruffy.

There was… another consideration, besides embarrassment.

Sometimes there were people who were obviously not on the winning side, and never would be. Bad at fencing or at words or at life in some crucial way Jesse could always ascertain. Occasionally, Jesse would casually amuse himself at some unfortunate soul’s expense. Seiji wouldn’t laugh because he never actually understood the jokes or why they were funny, but he didn’t care much. It was simply Jesse’s way. Now he recalled with unwelcome vividness how those people’s cheeks would bear sudden swift streaks of red, as though slashed. Or they might slink off with a curious look of defeat, as if a lunch table were a fencing match. Some of them, Seiji had noticed, never came back again.

Seiji didn’t want to see Jesse do that to Nicholas.

Not Nicholas.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, Striking Distance

“Tell me—or anyone else—something thatis personal to you, Coach had said.

Seiji couldn’t talk to just anyone, but Nicholas had said they were friends.

“I was… Jesse’s mirror,” said Seiji slowly. “I reflected his—glow, his glories and his victories. I used to think it was an honor. We were similar, I told myself, in all the ways that really mattered.”

Jesse was left-handed like Nicholas, so facing him sometimes felt like looking into a mirror. Like seeing yourself through the glass, a better, golden self in a different world. A self who fenced just as well but didn’t have to work as hard for it. A Seiji who did everything in life with the same skill as he fenced.

“You’re not a mirror,” said Nicholas. “You’re real.”

“It’s a metaphor, Nicholas.”

Nicholas shrugged. “You’re still not a mirror. Mirrors break. You never do.”

Seiji thought of his moment of defeat against Jesse. The moment that Aiden had seen, and taunted Seiji with, making Seiji lose again. Seiji had trained his whole life to be strong, but somehow, he was still weak. Jesse had taken his sword, and Seiji hadn’t been able to stop him. The bitterness of that defeat sent Seiji to Kings Row.

Always keep moving toward your target, his dad’s voice said, but somehow Seiji had ended up getting his target wrong. He’d moved toward loss and pain he still didn’t entirely understand.

“I lost,” confessed Seiji. “Badly.”

“Doesn’t make you a loser,” said Nicholas, having another lapse where he didn’t understand what words—let alone metaphors—meant. “You didn’t burst into tears and give up fencing. And you didn’t follow Jesse to Exton like a little lamb, the way he was expecting. You came to Kings Row, and you came to fence. You came to fight.”

This view of the matter was so shocking that Seiji said something he’d thought he would never say to Nicholas Cox.

“I suppose…,” said Seiji, “… you’re right.”

Nicholas’s gaze remained fixed on the floor.

“Being rivals shouldn’t be about being someone’s mirror. Both of you get to be real. Neither of you has to break.”

“Sometimes you’re insightful, Nicholas,” said Seiji. Nicholas looked pleased before Seiji added: “I think it’s mainly by accident.”

At that point, Nicholas rolled his eyes and stepped into his side of the room, yanking the curtain closed between them.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, Striking Distance