Rose Fall Quotes

In high school, she’d been the loner fat girl and I’d been the asshole jock. There had always been something between us; we had gotten on so easily. I remember being both confused and upset that when I’d finally experienced that thing everyone called chemistry, it had been with her of all people.

She had been waiting for someone to notice her, like, really notice her. She felt that that was the key, that she would go from the duck to the swan the minute someone recognized her potential. And they would look into her like they were trying to pierce her eyes with theirs, like they were trying to make her heart stop, and the whole world would become background noise and she would take her first breath after all of these years of nothing but existing. It would be like a coronation, or a star exploding, and then she would be born. She would be alive, and she would be loved.

I stared at my lap. I wished I were confident, I wished I were brave. I wished he didn’t scare me. But the more he spoke the less I wanted to look away, and the more I did.

I knew that Jessie and I were going to be okay; I knew we were all going to be okay. And I had faith that wherever our individual paths led us would be exactly where we were always meant to be. For a girl that had never believed in anything, this realization meant everything.

He stood frozen, staring at me as if he didn’t know how to do anything else. I couldn’t focus; it was like all the world’s blue had originated from his eyes. It was all there, the color of midnight, the sky, the ocean, and blue raspberry lollipops. Why had I spent so much time pretending they weren’t remarkable?