Eurellar29

“Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won’t make it home, I’m already half-dead
I met an Invalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

“Lena.” Alex’s voice is stronger, more forceful now, and it finally stops me.
He turns so that we’re face-to-face. At that moment my shoes skim off the sand
bottom, and I realize that the water is lapping up to my neck. The tide is coming
in fast. “Listen to me. I’m not who—I’m not who you think I am.”
I have to fight to stand. All of a sudden the currents tug and pull at me. It’s
always seemed this way. The tide goes out a slow drain, comes back in a rush.
“What do you mean?”
His eyes—shifting gold, amber, an animal’s eyes—search my face, and
without knowing why, I’m scared again. “I was never cured,” he says. For a
moment I close my eyes and imagine I’ve misheard him, imagine I’ve only
confused the shushing of the waves for his voice. But when I open my eyes he’s
still standing there, staring at me, looking guilty and something else—sad,
maybe?—and I know I heard correctly. He says, “I never had the procedure.”
“You mean it didn’t work?” I say. My body is tingling, going numb, and I
realize then how cold it is. “You had the procedure and it didn’t work? Like what
happened to my mom?”
“No, Lena. I—” He looks away, squinting, says under his breath, “I don’t
know how to explain.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Everyone knows that to openly show any disrespect for Magiano means instant death at my hands.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star

“Stop!” His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. “Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that—what we felt, what it meant—that’s done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.”
“Alex!”
He has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. “I don’t love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.”
The air goes. Everything goes. “I don’t believe you.” I’m crying so hard, I can hardly speak.
He takes one step toward me. And now I don’t recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. “It was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.”
― Lauren Oliver, Requiem