Mary E. Pearson

“You've always been two people. The Jenna who wants to please and the Jenna who secretly resents in. They won't break, you know. Your parents never thought you were perfect. You did.”

“They placed me on a pedestal from the day I was born! What choice did I have but to be perfect!”

“The dictionary says my identity should be all about being separate or distinct, and yet it feels like it is so wrapped up in others.”

“It wears on a person, you know, always having to be perfect. You know that one day something will happen,some problem that won't fit into a neat little project. Something that can't be fixed. Then where does that leave you?"She doesn't hesitate. "You become mortal like the rest of us," she says.”

“Ethan knows more about himself than he ever wanted to know, and I know less than I should.”

“And suddenly I feel weak, like every question in my head has collided against each other and won't let me think.”

“On a small planet where minute follows minute, day follows day, year follows year, where tradition marches on with a deafening orderly beat-sometimes the order is disturbed by a dreamer, and artist, a scribbler-sometimes the beat is changed by one person at a time.”

“Pieces"Isn't that what all of life is anyway?Shards. Bits. Moments.Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?Am I just as full as anyone else? Enough?Pieces.Allys saying "I like you"Gabriel snorting out bread freeing me to laugh.And Ethan reminding me how much I do know.Pieces.I hold them likethey are life itself.They nearly are.”

“I suppose you're right about some perspectives. Just a few weeks ago, I thought you were a dickhead.”

“What I think is all I have left. My mind is the only thing that makes me different from a fancy toaster. What we think does matter-it's all we truly have.”

“... Change doesn't happen overnight-it's molded by people who don't give up”

“There are all kinds of friends you make in life... But there's something different about someone who spreads their wings with you.”

“Are the details of our lives who we are, or is it owning those details that makes the difference?”

“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten . . .”

“These memories descend out of nowhere, giving me pieces of who I was, but their significance is lost. I sigh and resume my walk, not knowing if this memory is important, or just more of the jumbled trivia of Jenna's life, like sock shopping. Maybe that is all any life is composed of, trivia that eventually adds up to a person, and maybe I just don't have enough of it yet to be a whole one.”

“Boredom reigns on all levels. The rain is a welcome change. I have seen the pond swell and the creek surge. I press my palm against the glass, imagining the drops on my skin, imagining where they started out, where they will go, feeling them like a river, rushing, combining, becoming something greater than how they started out.”

“Maybe the impossible is possible when you take everything else away.When nothings left, maybe you can reach for something that no one knew existed.Or maybe we became something new. Maybe we made it exist.”

“Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back. I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out.”

“There are a lot of memories we imagine. We play them over and over in our minds, trying to orchestrate our movements and words to perfection. Or maybe it's just that I've lived inside of my head more than any other person in the history of the world. Maybe none of us can really predict how we will act at any give moment. Maybe we're all at the mercy of circumstance in spite of our well-laid plans.”

“Sometimes there's not a better way. Sometimes there's only the hard way.”

“I just think perfection and lasting through the ages is for Greek statues, not us mere humans.”

“Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?”

“But I am more than a name. More than they tell me”

“I used to be someone.”

“No matter how much they want it, or how much I want it, I can't make it happen. The feeling of failure is familiar. I always tried so hard to be everything they wanted”

“It's the unknown that I fear, the bites of memories that still have no connections.”

“Pieces. Isn't that what all of life is anyway? Shards. Bits. Moments. Am I less because I have fewer, or do the few I have mean more?”

“He believes me. But that is nothing new. He always did because I was a rule follower. I played by the rules he understood. But there are new rules now, ones he doesn't know yet. He'll learn. Just as I'm learning.”

“When is a cell finally too small to hold our essence?”

“How can you be sure?""I'm a doctor, Jenna. And a scientist.""Does that make you an authority on everything? What about a soul, Father? When you were so busy implanting all your neural chips, did you think about that? Did you snip my soul from my old body, too? Where did you put it? Show me! Where? Where in all this groundbreaking technology did you insert my soul?”

“When your life has had few events to occupy it, it's amazing how a simple encounter can seem like an entire three-act play.”

“It's other people who make us wise, and I haven't known nearly enough.”

“...and time becomes a forgotten detail.”

“Where we are going, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be the place that is important but the steps in between.”

“I shan't make a fuss over the babe's father.”

“Percentages! Those are for economists, polls, and politicians. Percentages can't define your identity.”

“ChoiceI needed it like I needed air.Bit no one could hear me. No one could listen. No words. No sound.No voice.I couldn't even dream myself away.Choices were made.None of them mine.At first I wondered if it was hell.And then I knew it was.”

“The information. Every bit that of information that was ever in your brain. But the information is not the mind Jenna. That we've never accomplished before. What we've done with you is groundbreaking. We cracked the code. The mind is an energy that the brain produces. Think of a glass ball twirling on your fingertip. If it falls, it shatters into a million pieces. All the parts of a ball are still there, but it will never twirl with that force on your fingertip again. The brain is the same way.”

“My memory is coming back. It is curious how it comes. Each day, a rush of pieces, loosely connected, unimportant bits, snake through me. They click, click, click into my brain, like links being snapped together. And then they are done. A small chain of memories that fill in one tiny part of my life. They come out of nowhere, and most are not important.”

“I created an icicle sculpture in the snow. White on white.”

“The thought weaves into her unexpectedly, as so many thoughts do, time again. How do you make the remembering stop?”

“The angels threw glitter up there, just for you, Zoe, Daddy had told her. They celebrated almost as much as I did the day you were born. Every time you look up there you remember how special you are - so special the angels threw a big party.”

“I think that maybe forgiveness is like change - it comes in small steps. (256)”

“WhiteThere was a moment in the darkness when the fear lifted.A moment where white surrounded me.Hope. Lily, and someone else, and a sprinkling of water."Holy water, Jenna.""You can let go if you need to.""Forgiveness, Jenna."But I couldn't let go.It wasn't in my power.I was already swirling, flying, falling.To someplace deep I didn't understand.Where all the sounds buy my own voice disappeared.Only me.For so long.I don't want to be alone anymore. (120)”

“Things I can feel. Hard. Soft. Rough. Smooth. But the inside kind of feel, it is all the same, like foggy mush. Is that the part of me that is still asleep? (9)”

“I still cry on waking. I'm not sure why. I feel nothing. Nothing I can name, anyway. It's like breathing - something that happens over which I have no control. (6)”

“AwarenessThere is a dark place.A place where I have no eyes, no mouth. No words.I can't cry out because I have no breath. The silence is so deep I want to die.But I can't.The darkness and silence go on forever.It is not a dream.I don't dream.”

“Pieces. A bit for someone here. A bit there. And sometimes they don't add up to anything whole. But you are so busy dancing. Delivering. You don't have time to notice. Or are afraid to notice. And then one day you have to look. And it's true. All of your pieces fill up other people's holes. But they don't fill your own.”

“Father says it will come in time. “Time heals,” he says.I don’t tell him that I don’t know what time is.”

“Which weakness shall I tell her?“I walk funny,” I say, and she’s satisfied with that.(inside joke)”