Nina LaCour

“Here it is, all at once: rightness. Not the graffiti itself, even though it's undeniably spectacular, but this feeling of making plans and carrying them them through, of meeting people and getting to know them, of being asked to do something and saying Yes, of wanting something, asking for it, making it happen.”

“We all want to be feel something, we want to be someone to one another.”

“It's incredible," she says, "how much damage everyone does to everybody else.”

“In just a little while we will forget all the things we used to want and adjust to the lives that we're given.”

“I've been waiting for this for so long--something new, life after high school.”

“There is an indescribable feeling that comes from being desperately in love with a song.”

“I always knew what I wanted to do, I just didn't know I could do it.”

“I want to tell you all the sad things, and then you will know me better than other people know me and that means we are reserved for one another.”

“There’s something about distance, being removed from what’s familiar, that lets things happen.”

“I can't believe that we could be so impermanent”

“whatever I decide, I might be making a mistake. But if I'm going to make a mistake I want it to be passionate”

“The ocean is far below us, but the waves crash so loudly, sound close enough to drown us.”

“It isn't the happy ending that Ingrid and I have dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and had you close”

“Searching, always. And yes, we all are, or soon will be, disenchanted, I still want to know it all: the heartbreak, the fear, the friendship, the anger, the love. All of it.”

“my life is just waiting for you to get started.”

“What is was, was that we complemented each other. We just fit in this way that made strangers ask us if we were sisters, even though her hair was blond and curly and mine was straight and dark. Even though her eyes were blue and mine were brown. Maybe it was the way we acted, or spoke, just moved. The way we would look at something and both have the same thought at the same moment, and turn to each other at the same time and start to say the same thing.”

“I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment in your life, and think, "Soon this will be over". But I understand more now. About the way life works.”

“People take one another for granted”

“I leaned over the sink, closer to my reflection, and stare at myself hard. I don't know what I see. I don't even know what I want to see.”

“That's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for each other. They see what parents don't.”

“I'll be better, so I won't want it to hurt anymore.”

“He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, 'O, teach me how I should forget to think!' I, for the first time, see what the big deal is about Shakespeare.”

“I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that's the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty.”

“I need to leave something behind. Something that will stay. This room should be a historical landmark, the site of the beginning and end of Colby and Bev. Several minutes have passed, and I know that if I wait too long there will be a knock on the door and I'll have to go, but I need to leave a mark. It has to be significant enough to last, but subtle enough that the maid won't notice and wash it away. As I'm looking around I realize that I never noticed the print above the bed. It's another in the family series - a faded wedding portrait. Groom in tux. Bride with pearls. It comes off the wall easily.I set the print on the bedspread and wit eht dust on the wall with the sleeve of my hood. I take out a Sharpie from my bag. The wall has yellowed to create a perfect rectangle where the photograph must have been hanging, unremoved, for years.I fill the whiter space with this: I never got to tell you how beautiful you are.And then I return the frame to its place on the wall and go back out into the night.”

“We have photographed the trip we were supposed to have. The one where all any of us felt was happy, and the world was only beautiful, and all of the colors were the brightest versions of themselves.”

“My mom says Ingrid's name and I start to hum, not the melody to a song, just one drawn-out note. I know it makes me seem crazy, I know it won't make anything change, but it's better than crying, it's better than screaming, it's better than listening to what they're telling me.”

“Maybe there is no right thing to say. Maybe the right thing is just a myth, not really out there at all.”

“Dylan, in her skintight black jeans, safety-pinned shirt, and bulky armbands, with her hair sticking out in every direction and that black freshly smeared around her eyes, doesn't just smile, doesn't just walk toward Maddy and put her arms around her. No. Instead, every muscle in her whole body seems to lose all tension, her step forward resembles a skip, and she lets out a hey that might as well say, I love you, you are so beautiful, no one in the world is as amazing as you are.”

“Then, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak- I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak- the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt... Then I look out to where there's this huge group of trees in the distance, and I count those for all the times I called her some name, or told her she was being stupid- because even though I was always joking, it might have hurt.”

“I don't know if any of this would have happened if we had been at home... Would we have crammed ourselves into the bathroom of a San Francisco restaurant to play her song? I doubt it. There's something about distance, being removed from what's familiar, that let's things happen.”

“It isn't the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close.”

“dear today, i spend all of you pretending i'm okay when i'm not, pretending i'm happy when i'm not, pretending about everything to everyone.”

“I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets into wishes, went around shouting them.”

“I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.”

“There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like this forever' but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.”

“This is what I want so don't be sad.”

“You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.”

“I was so blinded by her talent that I didn't recognize the tremendous pain behind her work. She gave me hundreds of images, so many chances to see that she was in trouble. I failed her.”

“No," I say. "I didn't know that," and as I say it I feel flooded with bitterness at all the things Ingrid kept secret from me.”

“This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes.”

“How it's so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she's made me. She got to disappear completely and I feel like I'm about to combust.”

“And I want to tell you about everything but I can't because I couldn't stand for you to have that look on your face all the time. I just need you to look at me and think that I'm normal. I just really need that from you.”

“There are so many things that I want so badly to tell you but I just can't.”

“I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered.”

“It was the moment I realized what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once.”

“Music is a powerful way for people to express themselves”

“They say that's what happens when you fall in love. You want to tell people things. You especially want to tell them sad things. Hidden sad things from the past. Something like: I was abandoned at a sweetshop in an unspecified European country.”

“If things happen for a reason, I was meant to get fucked over.”

“Here's how I feel: People take one another for granted. Like, I'd just hang out with Ingrid in all these random places--in her room or at school or just on a sidewalk somewhere. And the whole time we'd tell eachother things, just say our thoughts outloud. Maybe that would have been boring to some people, but it was never boring to us. I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment of your life, and think, "Soon this will be over." But I understand more now. About how life works.”

“We felt so small with the city lights stretching forever below us, and we yelled at the top of our lungs because we were just these small humans but we felt more longing than could ever fit inside us.”