Sarah Dessen (born June 6, 1970) is an American writer who lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
I hated high school. I was not the greatest student, participated in no activities, and spent most of my time hanging out in my parking lot.
That was the thing: Once, the difference between light and dark had been basic. One was good, one bad. Suddenly, though, things weren’t so clear. The dark was still a mystery, something hidden, something to be scared of, but I’d come to fear the light, too. It was where everything was revealed, or seemed to be. Eyes closed, I saw only the blackness, reminding me of this one thing, the most deep of my secrets; eyes open, there was only the world that didn’t know it, bright, inescapable, and somehow, still there.
But risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
It’s funny how one summer can change everything.
The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.
Was it really this easy, once you escaped, to just not care?
How fast were you?" Wes asked me. I said, "Not that fast. " "You mean you couldn't. . . fly?" he said, smiling at me.
Morris was not the type to offer a hug or even hold your hand. But there was something in his quiet indignation at the universe then--and Luke, now--that was just the kind of comfort I needed. "I'm such a mess," I said. "We're almost off the island and I didn't even ask you where you were going. " He shrugged. "No place. Wherever you are.
When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.
I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome. "Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?" I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him.
Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.
I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.
I never really know what I'm going to write next until it comes to me. So we'll just have to see what happens.
I find that the more I depend on real life, the less interesting the story is. It's much more common for me to take something that almost-happened, or I wish had happened, and then follow that possibility.
This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anythign can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.
I always say that teenagers are the first to know if you're pandering to them.
Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stp it. There's just os much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up.
Please. She sighed. 'Can't a girl have high standards? I don't want an ordinary boy.
My sister, who never understood most of the things I wanted her to, might have been able to understand what had happened to me in this summer of weddings and beginnings. And she was right. The first boy was always the hardest.
The way I see it," she continued, "is that some things are just meant to be the way they are.