Popular Quotes from The Way I Used to Be Book
“He’s not the hero and he’s not the enemy and he’s not a god. He’s just a boy. And I’m just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.”
“I hate that just because you happen to be good at something,people automatically think that’s what makes you happy,but it’s not really like that, you know? It’s not that simple.”
“I don’t know who I am right now. But I know who I’m not. And I like that.”
“Maybe He’ll get what he deserves. Maybe Not. Maybe I’ll never find it in my heart to forgive him. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that,either. All those maybes swimming around my head make me think that “maybe” could just be another word for hope.”
“All you have to do is act like you’re normal and okay, and people start treating you that way.”
“And I’m terrified he’ll see through the tough iceberg layer, and he’ll discover not a soft, sweet girl, but an ugly fucking disaster underneath.”
“I feel these forbidden thoughts creep in sometimes without warning. Slow thoughts that always start quietly, like whispers you’re not even sure you’re hearing. And then they get louder and louder until they become every sound in the entire world. Thoughts that can’t be undone.
Would anyone care?
Would anyone even fucking notice?
What if one day I just wasn’t here anymore?
What if one day it all just stopped?
What if? What if? What if?”“Because whatever he thinks I am, I’m not. And whatever he thinks my body is, it isn’t. My Body is a torture chamber. It’s a fucking crime scene.”
“. And I really wonder how people get to be normal like this. How they just seem to know what to say and do, automatically.”
“I can hear him breathing on the other side of the door,breathing oddly,like,unevenly. But,no,it’s not him just breathing,I realize slowly. He’s crying. And I kneel there on the other side of the door that might as well be the other side of the galaxy,feeling so empty,so dead inside.”
“No, can’t cry. Because there’s nothing to cry about. Because it was just a dream. A bad dream. A nightmare. Not real. Not real. Not real. That’s what I keep thinking: NotRealNotRealNotReal. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Like a mantra. Like a prayer.”
“All these maybes swimming around my head make me think that “maybe” could just be another word for hope.”
“I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t know why I didn’t hear the door click. Why I didn’t lock the damn door to begin with. Or why it didn’t register that something was wrong, so mercilessy wrong when I felt the mattress shift under his weight. Why I didn’t scream when I opened my eyes and saw him crawling between my sheets. Or why I didn’t to try to fight him when I still stood a chance.”
“I don’t know how long I lay there afterward, telling myself: squeeze your eyelids tight, just try to forget. Try to ignore all the things that didn’t feel right, all the things that felt like they would never feel right again.”
“I’m scared. Really scared he’s about to leave me. And more scared because I don’t want him to.”
“Because, in my heart, I know, I’m not who he thinks I am. Not even close. And he’s not who I want him to be, either.”
“His hands, his arms, can hold the pieces in place temporarily, maybe even for a long time, but he can never truly put them back together. That’s not his job. He’s not the hero and he’s not the enemy and he’s not a god. He’s just a boy. And I’m just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.”
“I close my eyes again, but it’s all I can see, all I can feel, all I can hear. His skin, his arms, his legs, his hands too strong, his breath on me, muscles stretching, bones cracking, body breaking, me getting weaker, fading. These things. It’s all there is.”
“So as I stare at the ceiling, I’m thinking: I must have some serious issues if I’m dreaming like that. Horrible stuff like that. About Kevin. Kevin. Because Kevin is my brother’s best friend, practically my brother. My parents love him like everyone else does, even me. And Kevin would never… could never. Not possible.”
“I try to stand without looking like everything is broken. I kick the Tuesdays under the bed so she won’t find them and wonder. I take my robe. Take the tie. And as I look back at my mother, watching her collect the soiled sheets in her arms, the evidence, I know somehow if it’s not now, it has to be never. Because he was right. No one would ever believe me. Of course they wouldn’t. Not ever.”
“I went to bed happy. I went to bed thinking of him. But the next thing I remember is waking up to him climbing on top of me, putting his hand over my mouth, whispering shutupshutupshutup. And everything happening so fast.
If it could be all a dream, just a dream that I could wake up from, then I would still be safe in my bed. That would make so much more sense. And nothing will be wrong. Nothing will be different. I’ll just be in my bed and nothing bad will ever have to happen there.”
“I close my eyes again. Take a deep breath. Reach down and touch my body. No underwear. I sit up too fast and my bones wail like I’m an old person. I’m scared to look, but there they are: my days-of-the-week underwear in a ball on the floor.
They were my Tuesdays even though it was Saturday because, well, who would ever know anyway? That’s what I was thinking when I put them on yesterday.”
“And around the time the moon and sun are coexisting in the sky, turning the room inside out with that eerie, yet calming pale glow, I have a terrible thought: I like him. I really, really like him. Like, love-like him. Like, with my metaphorical heart. Like, if I had an x-ray, it would show an arrow lodged right into the center of that bloody, bleeding mass of muscle in my chest. And I know, somehow, that things have changed between us.”
“I shove through the double doors of the library and it’s like I’ve just walked outside. Things are somehow lighter here, and everything moves at a more normal pace, slowing my heart down along with them as I stand in the entryway.”
“There’s a brief moment of silence for what we’ve lost. And in that moment, it ends. Finally. The past of us officially comes to an end.”
“He holds me hand as we walk up the driveway. It feels like it’s a million miles away, like it’s taken a million years to. finally get here. And I think: Maybe I’ll explain this to some people. Maybe Mara. Maybe I’ll apologize to some people. Maybe Steve. Maybe I’ll try a real relationship someday, one without all the lies and games. Maybe I’ll go to college, even, and maybe I’ll figure out that I’m actually goo d at something. Maybe he’ll get what he deserves. Maybe I’ll never find it in my heart to forgive him. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that, either. All. these maybes swimming around my head make me think that ‘maybe’ could just be another word for hope.”
“Ignore the taste in your mouth, the sticky dampness of the sheets, the fire radiating through your thighs, the nauseating pain. This bulletlike thing that ripped through you and got lodged in your gut somehow.”
“As the girl closed her eyes, she was thinking of him. Thinking that maybe he was thinking of her, too, but he wasn’t thinking of her in that way.
He was holding her in the palm of his hand, wrapping her around his fingers, one at a time, twisting and molding and bending her brain.
I try to whisper in the girl’s ear: “Edy, get up. Just lock your door. That’s all you need to do. Lock your door, Edy, please!”
I shout, but the girl doesn’t hear me. It’s too late.”
“I cover my eyes. I’m crying with my whole body and all I want to do is disappear. I feel his hand hesitate, hovering over my back, then rubbing awkward circles, and then his fingers in my hair. If he’s saying anything, I don’t hear.
All can I hear is my blood rushing and my heart drumming in my ears. A pulsing in my throat, like there’s a big jumbled ball of words stuck in there dying to get out. He puts both arms around me, but I feel suffocated.
Don’t want to be held. Don’t want to be touched. Not by anyone ever again in my entire life. I crunch my teeth together to keep myself from screaming.
Screaming in general, screaming at him to get his hands off me, screaming for help, screaming because I can’t make sense out of anything that is happening, has happened, will happen.
Screaming because I still feel like I’m back there, always back there, in my heart I’m still that girl.”
“All you have to do is act like you’re normal and okay, and people start treating you that way.”
