89
" She was smiling at me again, the way she had when we’d first arrived at the prom, but now more challenging, not quite playful. “I see you, the way he talks to you. He runs your life.”Her voice dropped into a cruelly accurate imitation of my dad’s stentorian tone. “Perry, you need to work harder. This is not acceptable. You will never get into Columbia with grades like these. How will you succeed in life?”I felt my internal temperature rise past my lips, cheeks, and forehead. “That’s not true.”“He tells you to do something, you do it. You spend your whole life afraid you will somehow disappoint him. And that is no way to live.”“Look,”I said, “I’m sorry, but you don’t know me that well. I mean, maybe you’ve lived in our house for a while, but you don’t know anything about how it really is with us. "
― Joe Schreiber , Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (Perry & Gobi, #1)
90
" For nine months I see things in your home, Mr. Stormaire, and I watch how you treat your son. I see that you want the best for him, but you have crushed his spirit with your expectations, and you have discouraged him with your restrictions. Family is important, but it is not immune to the indifference of a cold-hearted parent.”“I see,”my dad said. “And you’re an expert on this, are you, Gobi? On my family?”“I know that the man who does not put his family first places his own soul at peril. I have been watching and listening. And while that may not make me an expert, I would say that I know what I am speaking of. "
― Joe Schreiber , Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (Perry & Gobi, #1)
97
" Keeping the gun pointed at her, I flipped the safety off. All at once I could hear the noise of the city, the traffic pulsing on the expressway, the subways roaring under the sidewalks, millions of people out talking and driving around, living their lives. I smelled coffee and cigarettes and perfume and wet trees, tasted it in the air. It was all incredibly alive, like my heart and lungs working on overload, resonating in my chest and pounding through my skull. "
― Joe Schreiber , Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (Perry & Gobi, #1)