J.A. Redmerski

“If your dad doesn’t make it,” I begin and his expression falls, “let yourself cry, OK? One of the worst feelings in the world is being unable to cry and eventually it… starts to make things darker.”

“But the heart has a mind of its own and it always gets what it wants, especially when it's dying.”

“But before she tells you anything." I glared at him suspiciously."your seed..."Tsaeb winced."What the hell are you talking about?""your...well, your seed. You know, you have to knock her up.”

“The longer you look the more you see," said the twins at the same time, "the more you see, the less you are.”

“The twins hobbled forward. "Freaks and dames and boys and things, drinks and bones and shiny rings," said the twin on the left. "Ashes and earth will imprison the frail, blood of love will lift the veil," said the other.”

“She stops chewing and brings the chains on her wrist up to her nose and sniffs. She pulls away with a mild disgusted expression. "Definitely smells like a skank...”

“I'm not helping any of you freaks!" she shouts. "I'm not the Witch of Wayland, you hear me? I'm sick of all you mutants pounding on my door for love spells and all the like! I told you, I don't do that backwoods modern-day, wannabe Wiccafuck stuff! You hear me?”

“You can do this, Adria. Don't wolf-out on me, especially not in my lap, alright? These are my favorite jeans.”

“Don't, he says and then places his free hand underneath mine.”

“I do not want any guys to hit on me. Innocent flirting, fine -- it does wonders for my confidence -- but not douchebags.”

“I was completely into Isaac Mayfair. Everything just felt right, like it was meant to be. Whatever "it" was. ~Adria”

“Dear Camryn, I never wanted it to be this way. I wanted to tell you these things myself, but I was afraid. I was afraid that if I told you out loud that I loved you, that what we had together would die with me. The truth is that I knew in Kansas that you were the one. I’ve loved you since that day when I first looked up into your eyes as you glared down at me from over the top of that bus seat. Maybe I didn’t know it then, but I knew something had happened to me in that moment and I could never let you go. I have never lived the way I lived during my short time with you. For the first time in my life, I’ve felt whole, alive, free. You were the missing piece of my soul, the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins. I think that if past lives are real then we have been lovers in every single one of them. I’ve known you for a short time, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. I want you to know that even in death I’ll always remember you. I’ll always love you. I wish that things could’ve turned out differently. I thought of you many nights on the road. I stared up at the ceiling in the motels and pictured what our life might be like together if I had lived. I even got all mushy and thought of you in a wedding dress and even with a mini me in your belly. You know, I always heard that sex is great when you’re pregnant. ;-) But I’m sorry that I had to leave you, Camryn. I’m so sorry…I wish the story of Orpheus and Eurydice was real because then you could come to the Underworld and sing me back into your life. I wouldn’t look back. I wouldn’t fuck it up like Orpheus did. I’m so sorry, baby… I want you to promise me that you’ll stay strong and beautiful and sweet and caring. I want you to be happy and find someone who will love you as much as I did. I want you to get married and have babies and live your life. Just remember to always be yourself and don’t be afraid to speak your mind or to dream out loud. I hope you’ll never forget me. One more thing: don’t feel bad for not telling me that you loved me. You didn’t need to say it. I knew all along that you did. Love Always,Andrew Parrish”

“I love the smell of Waffle House; it's the smell of freedom, being on the open road and knowing that ninety percent of the people eating around you are also on that road. Truck driver's, road-trippers, hangovers--those who don't live that monotonous life of society slavery.”

“Coincidence is just a safe conformist for fate.”

“It´s better to shun emotion than to fall for it and let it make you its bitch - and since nothing lasts forever, in the end everything that was once good, always hurts like hell.”

“Well,” Harry said with a grin, “a guy knows when another guy is interested in a girl and you could’ve puked in Isaac’s lap and he would still have a thing for you.”

“If it makes you feel better, you can tell me to screw off if you want to refuse anything, but I hope you won't because I really want to show you how to live." - Andrew Parrish”

“I want you, goddammit! … The thought of you leaving at never seeing you again tears-me-up-inside! … I can’t fucking breathe without you!”

“Are you in love with me, Camryn Bennett?”… “Not yet,” I say with a smile in my voice, “but I’m getting there.”

“I run behind her, letting her stay a few steps ahead of me so if she happens to fall I’ll be there to laugh at her first and then help her up afterwards.”

“She sticks her tongue out at me and crosses her eyes. Not sure why that made me want to do her in the backseat, but to each his own, I guess.”

“She got pissed when I accused her of having Bieber Fever (it pisses me off that I even know what the fuck that means – I blame that on society)”

“It’s my future and my life and I can’t make myself live the way someone else wants me to.”

“Why does everybody have to be with somebody? It’s a stupid delusion and a really pathetic way of thinking.”

“Everybody starts out as strangers.”

“The moment you see someone attractive, you can't help but make note of it. It's human nature.”

“I'm not sure what it is that I want, but I feel it deep in the pit of my stomach. It's there sitting dormant. I'll know it when I see it.”

“A bus ride is like being in another world.”

“It's the people y'gotta watch out for. You never know who y'might meet, or what Ol' Man Fate has in store for yah.”

“Parents have this twisted belief that anyone under the age of about twenty simply can’t know what love is, like the age to love is assessed in the same way the law assesses the legal age to drink. They think that the ‘emotional growth’ of a teenager’s mind is too underdeveloped to understand love, to know if it’s ‘real’ or not.That's completely asinine.The truth is that adults love in different ways, not the only way.”

“I don’t think you ever really fall out of love with someone. I think when you fall in love, like true love, it’s love for life. All the rest is just experience and delusions.”

“Just that dwelling and planning is bullshit, you dwell on the past, you can’t move forward. Spend too much time planning for the future and you just push yourself backwards, or you stay stagnant in the same place all your life. Live in the moment, where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.”

“When you're with someone for so long you get used to them, y'know? It's a comfort-zone thing. When we get settled in our comfort zone, trying to pull us out of it even if everything about it is hell and unhealthy, is like trying to pull a fat ass couch potato out of his living room long enough to get a life.”

“You were the missing piece of my soul, the breath in my lungs, and the blood in my veins.”

“But how can two people who are undeniably more than just attracted to one another not give in? We've been on the road together for almost two weeks. We've shared intimate secrets and we've been intimate in some ways. We've slept next to each other and touched one another, yet still here we are, standing on opposite sides of a thick glass wall. We reach up and touch our fingers to the glass, we look into each others eyes and we know what we want but the glass won't fucking budge. This is either inviolable discipline or pure, unadulterated self-torture.”

“When we pull away, he rests his hand on my thigh pressed next to his and we ride like that for a long time; the only time he moves his hand is to take better control of a sharp curve or to adjust the music, but he always puts it right back.And I always want him to.”

“I have never lived the way I lived during my short time with you. For the first time in my life, I’ve felt whole, alive, free. You were the missing piece of my soul, the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins. I think that if past lives are real then we have been lovers in every single one of them. I’ve known you for a short time, but I feel like I’ve known you forever”

“I believe that no matter what happens, or where we go, or if there's an afterlife, that we'll always be connected. Not even death can make me forget you, or forget that I love you.”

“I think I've been afraid most of my life to be myself.”

“Well, guilt is a bitch, but don't you think if you're thinking it in the first place that it just might be true?”

“Pain is pain, babe. Just because one person's problem is less traumatic than another's doesn't mean they're required to hurt less.”

“What you wear doesn't really matter much. All that matters is where you're going what you're doing while you're wearing it.”

“I mean it wasn’t an empty hole, there was al­ways some­thing in it, but it was never right. It never fit. I went to col­lege for a short time, until I sat back one day and said to my­self: An­drew, what the fuck are you doing here? And it clicked in my head that I wasn’t there be­cause it’s what I wanted, I was there be­cause it’s what peo­ple ex­pected, even peo­ple I don’t know, so­ci­ety. It’s what peo­ple do.”

“I think that if past lives are real then we have been lovers in every single one of them. I've known you for a short time, but I feel like I've known you forever.”

“You two were meant to be together. It's like some wicked fucking fairytale love story that you just can't make up, y'know?”

“Coincidence is just the conformist term for fate.”

“I hate to say it, but shit really does happen. You just have to get over it. Beat the hell out of it by doing things that make you happy.”

“Well, everybody needs help feeling alive again every once in a while.” “No,” she says seriously, and my gaze falls back on hers, “I didn’t say again, Andrew; for making me feel alive for the first time.”

“Heart always wins out over the mind. The heart, although reckless and suicidal and a masochist all on its own, always gets its way.”

“You dwell on the past, you can't move forward. Spend too much time planning for the future and you just push yourself backwards, or you stay stagnant in the same place all your life." "Live in the moment," he says as if making a serious point, "Where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you'll get wherever it is you're going a lot faster and with less bumps in the way.”