Lauren Oliver

Now I get it. I’m starved for different light, a different sun, different sky. I’ve never really thought about it before, but it’s a miracle how many kinds of light there are in the world, how many skies

I should have enjoyed them more, should have memorized them all. I should have died on a day with a beautiful sunset. I should have died on summer vacation or winter break. I should have died on any other day.

The idea of telling on Anna Cartullo for sleeping with Alex after what I’ve just done—after Mr. Daimler—is hilarious. I’ve got no right to say anything to anybody. I’m smoking weed in a bathroom, I have no friends, my math teacher stuck his tongue down my throat, my boyfriend hates me because I won’t sleep with him. I’m dead, but I can’t stop living.

You don’t need to be fixed, Sam.” He says the words, but it’s like I don’t even hear them; it’s like they go through my whole body at the same time, like I’m absorbing them from the air. He must know it’s untrue. I open my mouth to tell him so, but he’s already disappearing down the stairs, melting into the crowd of people flowing into the house. I’m a nonperson, a shadow, a ghost. Even before the accident I’m not sure that I was a whole person—that’s what I’m realizing now.

And I’m not sure where the damage begins.

Where you headed? Just want to be alone. Can I come in? Just leave me alone. Stay out of my room. Don’t talk to me when I’m on the phone. Don’t talk to me when I’m listening to music. Alone, alone, alone.

Things change after you die, though—I guess because dying is about the loneliest thing you can do.

I never really believed I’d have to relive one day forever, either. It’s no crazier than what’s already happened to me. Maybe the whole point is I have to prove that I’m a good person. Maybe I have to prove that I deserve to move on.

I shake my head, trying not to cry again. “I’ll be okay. It’s just…the shock.” I swallow hard. “I just want to…I want to rewind, you know?”

He nods once, and puts his hand over mine. I don’t pull it away. “If I could make it better I would,” he says.

In some ways it’s a stupid, obvious thing to say, but the way he says it, so honest and simple like it’s the truest thing there is, makes tears prick in my eyes.

I shake my head, trying not to cry again. “I’ll be okay. It’s just…the shock.” I swallow hard. “I just want to…I want to rewind, you know?”

He nods once, and puts his hand over mine. I don’t pull it away. “If I could make it better I would,” he says.

In some ways it’s a stupid, obvious thing to say, but the way he says it, so honest and simple like it’s the truest thing there is, makes tears prick in my eyes.

vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took,

The details that are my life’s special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced.

So many things become beautiful when you really look.