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21 " Please don’t walk away from me because you’re worried about the opinions of racists and assholes. Walk away from me because you hate me,” he said. "Tell me you think I’m stupid and ugly and I swear this would hurt less. "
― , A Very Large Expanse of Sea
22 " Ocean, azizam,” she said, “please tell Shirin she should stop swearing so much. It’s always asshole this, bullshit that. I say to her, Shirin joon, why are you so obsessed with shit? Why everything is shit? "
23 " Music made my day so much easier. Walking through the halls at school was somehow easier; sitting alone all the time was easier. I loved that no one could tell i was listening to music and that, because no one knew, i was never asked to turn it off. I'd had multiple conversations with teachers who had no idea i was only half hearing whatever they were saying to me, and for some reason this made me happy. Music seemed to steady me like a second skeleton; I leaned on it when my own bones were too shaken to stand. I always listened to music on the iPod i'd stolen from my brother, and here- as i did last year, when he first bought the thing- I walked to class like i was listening to the soundtrack of my own shitty movie. It gave me an inexplecable kind of hope. "
24 " I was stuck in another small town, trapped in another universe populated by the kind of people who’d only ever seen faces like mine on their evening news, and I hated it. "
25 " I had never, ever touched someone and felt like this: like I was holding electricity inside of me. "
26 " I got lost in the feel of him, in the heat of his skin, in the way his body shook when he broke away and I felt like I was dreaming, like I’d forgotten how to think.(...) We broke apart, fighting to breathe, holding on to each other like we were drowning, like we’d been lost, left for dead in a very large expanse of sea. "
27 " I could no longer distinguish people from monsters. I looked out at the world around me and no longer saw nuance. I saw nothing but the potential for pain and the subsequent need to protect myself, constantly. "
28 " How can you say that?” he said, and I heard his voice break. “How can you even think that? I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I want everything with you,” he said. “I want all of it with you. I want you. I want this forever. "
29 " He kept trying to be nice to me and, in an unexpected turn of events, his kindness left me angry and confused. I pushed him away because i was afraid to be even remotely close to someone who, i was certain, would one day hurt me. I trusted no one anymore. I was so raw from repeated exposure to cruelty that now even the most minor abrasions left a mark "
30 " He said he promised he wouldn’t try to kiss me again and I wanted to say don’t you dare promise not to kiss me again but I didn’t. "
31 " Just try to be happy', Jacobi finally said to me. 'Your happiness is the one thing these assholes can't stand "
32 " My body felt like it was now made entirely of nerves, like muscle and bone had been removed to make room for all this new emotion "
33 " I felt blind and deaf at the same time, like i was moving through a fog, and i realized then- as i realizd everytime something like this happened- that i was never as strong as i hope to be "