01c. 1954 ADThe sky was almost black and then it started hailing. It was so beautiful and scary, I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
02c. 1954 ADI wondered how that felt, to really like yourself. And I wondered why some people didn't like themselves and others did. Maybe that's just the way it was.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
03c. 1954 ADI had to be the world's biggest loser, writing about hair, and stuff about my body. No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that?Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
04c. 1954 ADAll this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of theuniverse, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been soclose and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I’d met Dante, Ihad fallen in love with him. I just didn’t let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right.And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
05c. 1954 ADYou're fighting this war in the worst way possible." "I don't know how to fight it, Dad.""You should ask for help," he said."I don't know how to do that, either.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
06c. 1954 ADI wondered what it would be like, to love a girl, to know how a girl thinks, to see the world through a girl's eyes. Maybe they knew more than boys. Maybe they understood things that boys could never understand.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
07c. 1954 ADHe was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he'd rather be kissing boys. That's exactly what he said. I didn't know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to be Dante and if I was going to be his friend, I would just have to learn to be okay with it.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
08c. 1954 ADI have this idea stuck in my head that you have to be born beautiful in order to dream beautiful things. God didn't write beautiful on my heart. I'm stuck with all my bad dreams. Bad dreams for bad boys. I guess that's the way it is for me. Look, there's nothing I can do about it.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
09c. 1954 ADThat was the first time I did coke.My body, it was electric. For the first time in my life I felt as if I had a real heart and a real body and I knew that there was this fire in me that could have lit up the entire universe. No book had ever made me feel that way. No human being had ever made me feel like that.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
10c. 1954 ADThe thing about tears is that they can be as quiet as a cloud floating across the desert sky.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
11c. 1954 ADI mean, okay, let's say we're all going to get better. Let's just pretend we will. Fine. Where are we going to go after we get better? What are we going to do with all of our newfound healthy behaviors? Back out into the world that screwed us up and screwed us over. This does not sound promising.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
12c. 1954 ADWater was something he loved, something he respected. He understood its beauty and its dangers. He talked about swimming as if it were a way of life.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
13c. 1954 ADHe tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
14c. 1954 ADThe summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
15c. 1954 ADI wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
16c. 1954 ADYou know what the worst thing about adults is? ...They're not always adults. But that's what I like about them.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
17c. 1954 ADThis was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
18c. 1954 ADI was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn't like feeling like that.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
20c. 1954 ADWhen I was a boy, I used to wake up thinking that the world was ending.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
21c. 1954 ADDid you hear me, Zach? I care about you.” “Okay,” I said. “It’s okay with me that you care about me. But can we please not talk about it? Would that be okay with you?” “Yeah, that would be okay,” he said.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
22c. 1954 ADThe heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
23c. 1954 ADDo you know what dead skin looks like when they take off a cast?That was my life, all that dead skin. It was strange to feel like the Ari I used to be. Except that wasn’t totally true. The Ari I used to be didn’t exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn’t exist yet.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
24c. 1954 ADWhen I walked into the house, I went in search of one of my dad's bottles. Not that they were that hard to find. He hid bottles all over the house. I knew where they all were. That was one of my hobbies, finding where my dad hid his bottles. It was my version of looking for Easter eggs. In my house, Easter lasted forever.Benjamin Alire Sáenz / quote ↗
