Amelia Smith > Recent Status Updates

"As I write this, I am pregnant with my and Henry’s first child, so the final thanks must go to this mysterious being inside of me, our baby—My darling, I had a different ending in mind while writing this book; then you appeared and bent the curve of this story, and my life, inexorably toward hope. Thank you for choosing me."

"“We had one picked out, but then…it didn’t feel right. She came with her name, I think.”

“What is it?” Lucky asked.

Bonnie swallowed and placed a hand on the baby’s crown.

“Nicole,” said Bonnie. “Nicole Petrovich Blue.”"

CRYING!!

"Avery felt the pleasure of being a sister among sisters again after so long. They were not four, and they never would be again, but they were starting to find the symmetry in three."

"A lot was written about romantic love, Avery thought, about the profundity of that embrace. But this, too, was deserving of rapture, of song. Before she ever knew a lover’s body, she knew her sisters’, could see herself in their long feet and light eyes, their sleek limbs and curled ears."

"And if addiction ran in families, maybe recovery could too."

"He kissed her and it felt like trying to stand still in a great, billowing wave as it crashed over her head."

"For years, Bonnie had laughed at these little mannerisms of Pavel’s, the odd phrases he used that no native English speaker would. He collected these unwanted words and made them beautiful again, like a child gathering pieces of sea glass along the shore."

"Would it ever be easier to tell this story? Would it ever not make her want to grab the world like a sheet of drawing paper on which a terrible mistake had been made and rip it up, rip it down, and start again?"

"She could be listening to someone ostensibly nothing like her who would describe, with almost uncanny precision, her exact feelings and thoughts. That was the magic of the fellowship, when it worked: the realization that the parts of yourself that were the most hidden, most shameful, were what connected you most deeply to others."

"Against their parents, against the world at large, they were fiercely allied. But among themselves, everything was a competition. There was never enough attention, never enough money, never enough love to go around. So they fought for every scrap."

"Being one of four sisters always felt like being part of something magic. Once Bonnie noticed it, she saw the world was made up of fours. The seasons. The elements. The points on a compass. Four suits in a pack of cards. Four chambers of a human heart. Bonnie loved being a part of this mystical number, this perfect symmetry of two sets of two. Until you know my sisters, she used to say to Pavel, you don’t know me."

"...She was the music moving on that air. She was thump, thump, thumping. The man smiled down at her with his ginormous, friendly face. Rays of light were shooting out of his head. His smile was a thousand suns. He was the eclipse."

"He was the night sky. He was the moon. He was a disco ball reflecting back a thousand versions of herself. She was refracting like light in his gaze. She was a million little particles falling all over the dance floor. She was the air the dancers inhaled..."

"It felt better than nothing. Actually, it would be better to feel nothing—to be nothing. That’s what Lucky wanted most, to find a nick in the fabric of the room, tear it open, and disappear into the black hole behind it."

"Sniff of coke. Bump of ket. Get a drink. Have a smoke. Sniffy cokey. Bump o’ keto. Getta drinka. Hava smoke. Shniffml coke. Bumpbumpket. Getaaaa dreeenk. Hashasnoke…The room was bending, the walls relaxing to a wompy softness. Lucky lost track of where her body ended and everyone else’s began. The floor kept giving way beneath her like a bouncy castle."

"She’d found, in general, it was easier to keep her mouth shut and let people think whatever comforting thoughts they wanted about her. People seemed to hate her less that way."

"[...] finding, in their own lack of marketable beauty, a confirmation of their higher intelligence. But if the two weren’t causal? If it was possible to be both professionally attractive and smart? Then their own average looks served no purpose other than to disappoint, with Lucky acting as the hapless reminder."

"He appeared to be the kind of person who delighted in highlighting other people’s weaknesses, mostly, Lucky presumed, to distract from his own. Besides, as a model, Lucky was used to people taking pleasure in proving she was an idiot. It was a kind of protection against inadequacy, she assumed; if she was pretty but dumb, they could still feel superior, even a little righteous, [...]."

"Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began. It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard."

"...she is lost. In fact, all the remaining sisters are.

But what they don’t know is this: As long as you are alive, it is never too late to be found."

wait... no... stop! what?! *crying forever*

🔪💔

so no one's gonna mention the menstrual blood? cool cool cool

i didn't dnf... might as well finish now

the only thing getting me through eos

i am so close to dnf'ing this