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1 " Some days it’s fine. Others it nearly breaks me. The emptiness of the horizon, and the hunger in my body, and how will we ever survive this if we can’t survive each other? "
― Rory Power , Wilder Girls
2 " She’s never liked us much, not since she complained that there were no boys on the island, and Reese gave her the blankest look I’ve ever seen and said, “Plenty of girls, though. "
3 " Byatt’s carved her initials over and over. BW. BW. BW. She does that everywhere. On the bunk, on her desk in every class we had, on the trees in the grove by the water. Marking Raxter as hers, and sometimes I think if she asked, I’d let her do the same to me. "
4 " See how a body will change, to give you the best chance it can. "
5 " Usually, it was an accident. A lie I never set out to tell. A trick I never meant to play. I’d open my mouth, and something strange would come out, new and not mine. Like there was someone else inside. "
6 " A sparking. I know this feeling. Just before a flare-up, there’s a moment. Hard to describe, hard to pin down, but for me it almost makes it worth it. The pain and the loss, all of it a fair price for this. This strength, this power, this eagerness to bare my teeth. "
7 " For a second I can see it all laid out across her. The longing and the resignation and the betrayal, the sting of watching the island she loves steal the people she pretends she doesn't. "
8 " I’m still bitter,” I say. “Nobody ever gave me anything for my first.” Byatt laughs, her hands moving quick to open the soup can, and she gives me the lid. “There. My gift to you. "
9 " But Byatt's our girl." I'm watching Reese's face, and I have her. I know I do. "We are supposed to protect her. Just like she'd do it for us." I take a deep breath. "Just like I'd do it for you. "
10 " It's complicated," She says at last. "Or maybe I just wish it was. "
11 " It’s like that, with all of us here. Sick, strange, and we don’t know why. Things bursting out of us, bits missing and pieces sloughing off, and then we harden and smooth over. "
12 " We don't get to choose what hurts us "
13 " I think I’d been looking for it all my lifea storm in my body to match the one in my head. "
14 " Some days it’s fine. Others it nearly breaks me. The emptiness of the horizon, and the hunger in my body, and how will we ever survive this if we can’t survive each other? “We’re gonna make it. Tell me we’re gonna make it. "
15 " There's no room to feel bad. If I feel that, I have to feel everything else. "
16 " Some things don’t belong to other people,” she says, tired and drifting. “Some things are just mine. "
17 " I miss the north side cliff and the waves below, and I miss the way the wind steals your breath like it never belonged to you in the first place. "
18 " I’ve spent every day since I met her telling myself the wrong thing. Telling myself over and over that she was cold, when maybe she was burning the whole time. "
19 " It's not love, to give your wounds to someone else. "
20 " And I’ve wanted boys, and I’ve wanted girls, but I’ve never wanted anyone enough to miss them, "