Melody > Recent Status Updates

“A state trooper, all dark green and metal badges.

I stick my fingers in my mouth and whistle.

The crowd goes quiet. Papaw is still putting up a tent, so it’s Mamaw that picks up his shotgun.”

Mamaw & Papaw 4ever

“What’s law enforcement except a group of people legally allowed to hurt you without case? I don’t trust no one with that kind of power.”

!!!!

we love a QPR around here

“I’m tired too. But I get to sleep. Not you.”

This book has blown me away in the best and worst ways jfc

god bless lady 😭😭

Are you KIDDING ME

Brb sending AJW my therapy bills wtf

“The fire almost reached the church. The cop cars were positioned in just a way that the volunteer fire department - what little we have - couldn’t get close enough until the fire truck mowed down the offending vehicle like roadkill.”

This would be less sad if it weren’t something I could 100% absolutely see happening.

“Terry takes one last drink of his water and sighs into the rim of his glass. Then he hands the glass to Amber.

“What’s the best way out of here?” Mom is asking Michael.

“Through the kitchen,” Michael says. “Into the alley.”

Amber throws the water in Sheriff Davies’s face.

*insert Elmo fire gif here*

“What’s that say on your shirt? All cops are bastards?” It’s baby pink, decorated with angelic cats and daisies; I hadn’t noticed the words until he said them out loud. “Where’s your sense of respect, Mrs. Foster?”

Amber don’t back down. “Respect is earned, not given, officer.”

“You don’t need a diagnosis,” Dallas says.

“What?”

“If you think you are,” Dallas says, “you probably are.”

““They outed him,” Dad says, voice small. “Do you know what happens when you out someone? Sometimes their parents abandon them.”

“Probably what they were banking on,” Papaw says gruffly.

Nobody fights him on that, but it is what makes it click for Mamaw. This was a violation. This was something taken from me. She don’t need to get it; she needs to be kind.”

😭😭

“I think Papaw is going to kill someone again, he’s staring at the stage, unblinking, hand curling and uncurling.”

Everything is fucked but I love Papaw so much 😭😂

“It’s unnerving to see your entire personality reflected back at you under the symptom list of a developmental disorder.”

“I’m not autistic. I’m weird and socially inept and a picky eater and had to be taught how to smile and made to stop chewing my hair and can’t spend more than a few minutes around people before I want to crawl out of my skin and cant take a shower without losing my shit over it and I don’t understand people at all.

I’m not autistic.”

“The Davieses have a way of doing things. Wrenching your jaw open and shoving something between your teeth, one wrong move away from obliterating you. They’ll pull the trigger or bring down the hammer. End you just like that.”

“It should’ve been done just like that. Hit Paul once, maybe a second time to keep him down, and it’d be over. Because that’s how death works. It’s fast and out of nowhere.”

I need to learn to read faster bc wtf is happening

Idk which highlight to put here so I’m putting them both.

“Oh. My name. Dallas is worried about my name. Is this what it’s like to be around other trans people? Not just using your name, but defending it?”

&

“You’re thirty. You’re ancient.” ☹️☹️☹️

“I’m full of depressing statistics. Maybe that’s why I don’t have friends.”


I’m not trying to be annoying but AJW just 👏🏻 with the little things that stand out. This is how I regularly end up with 100+ highlights.

“Just heard Paul’s parents are out of town on the fourth. Sounds like a clean shot to me”

👀

I hate cops I hate cops I hate cops.

Like I get that that’s the point but jfc.

[im putting my highlights here now bc this arc copy won’t let me highlight them 🙄]

“I guess,” he says, “my main question is, how do you know?” How do you feel? I don’t know. I never know. “Because there’s nothing inside me that tells me I’m a man. I just am.”

I shrug. “Exactly.”

Dad leans back in his chair. “Huh.”

“My name. It’s the first time he’s said my name. My eyes burn. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. I wad the shoelace up in my hand and squeeze until it hurts.”

He might not be crying but I am 😭

“Showing pain or exhaustion on purpose feels manipulative. I tend to wait until my nervous system breaks under the pressure and acts of its own accord.”

🤝🏻