Look-ee-loo

[Context: There is a flood. Cal (the narrator), has just seen many objects floating past her second-story window.]

"Not much we can do, I guess," [Abe] says, running a hand across his bare head. "The wall seems to be keeping the water out of here. At least for now." Someone shouts into a bullhorn, but it's too far away to hear the words. "Want to go look-ee-loo with me?"

"Want to what?" I ask, staring at him.

"You know, what to go up the street and stand around and say things like 'So, what's the situation?' and 'What are y'all doin'?'"

"Well, yeah," I say. "I'm sure they love that."

Fireworks

"I watched as he bent over the last one, my firework, and I fought the urge to tell him not to, to just leave it. I held my breath as he touched the glowing ember to the fuse and watched as the flame slowly crawled up the length of it and into the body of the firework. With a flash of light it launched into the sky, whizzing overhead in front of the moon and out over the lake. I heard the pop of the containment tube bursting from the pressure of the flame. I watched as one by one fountains of colors burst from the tube, first red, then white, then green, before the tube began to fall back to earth, gaining speed as gravity pulled at it. It disappeared behind the trees, making me lose sight of it, but I swear I felt its impact throughout my body as it hit the ground."

The Moon

"The moon is always falling toward us. It falls, gets caught in its orbit, falls, gets caught, falls, caught, all the time, constantly."

"Sounds like what people do."

Falling

tiny: ... because everyone thinks it should be possible to just keep falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned smile. and that should be possible. you should be able to fall forever.

and i think: no.

seriously. no.

because i have spent my life falling. not the kind that tiny's talking about. he's talking about love. i'm talking about life. in my kind of falling, there's no landing. there's only hitting the ground. hard. dead, or wanting to be dead, so the whole time you're falling, it's the worst feeling in the world because you have no control over it. because you don't know how it ends.

i don't want to fall. all i want to do is stand on solid ground.

and the weird thing is, i feel like i'm doing that now. because i am trying to do something good. in the same way that tiny is trying to do something good.

Doors

I'm waiting for him. To come out and apologize. Or else to come out and yell at me... I'm waiting for those dark wood double doors to open and for Tiny to blow through them and start talking.

I know it's immature, but I don't care. Sometimes you need your best friend to walk through the doors. And then, he doesn't.

Superstitions; love and truth

[original will grayson]: i know it sucks, but in a way, it's good.

this is about as inspirational as a movie of hitler making out with his girlfriend and having a good time. it runs afoul of what i call the birdshit rule. you know, how people say it's good luck if a bird shits on you? and people believe it! i just want to grab them and say, 'dude, don't you realize this whole superstition was made up because no one could think of anything else good to say to a person who'd just been shit upon?' and people do that all the time - and not with something as temporary as birdshit, either. you lost your job? great opportunity! failed at life? there's only one way to go - up! dumped by a boyfriend who never existed? i know it sucks, but in a way, it's good!

i'm about to strip o.w.g. of his right to be a will grayson, but then he goes on.

o.w.g.: love and truth being tied together, i mean. they make each other possible, you know?

Good-bye

i do not say 'good-bye.' i believe that's one of the bullshittiest words ever invented. it's not like you're given the choice to say 'bad-bye' or 'awful-bye' or 'couldn't-care-less-about-you-bye.' every time you leave, it's supposed to be a good one. well, i don't believe in that. i believe against that.

Company

"Auden?"

I jumped, then turned my head to see Maggie standing beside me. Her hair was blowing in the breeze, her bag over her shoulder. Behind her, the boardwalk was a row of lights, one right after the other.

"You okay?" she said. When I didn't respond, she added, "You seemed kind of sad when you left."

I had a flash of my mother, the dismissive way she'd looked at Maggie, the bikini bottoms, the Booty Berry [perfume], and then me, all of grouped in the category of Not to Her Liking. But it was vast, that place I'd struggled to avoid for so long, as wide and long as the beach where we were right then. And now that I finally found myself squarely in it, I realized I was kind of glad to have company.

"No," I said to her. "I don't think I am, actually."

I don't know what I expected her to do or say to this. It was all new to me, from that second on. But clearly, she'd been there before. It was obvious in the easy way she shrugged off her bag, letting it fall with a thump onto the sand, before sitting down beside me. She didn't pull me close for a big bonding hug, or offer up some saccharine words of comfort, both of which would have sent me running for sure. Instead, she gave me nothing but her company, realizing even before I did that this was, in fact, just what I needed.

The Best of Times

"Because you don't want The Best of Times to be just one thing, forever. You have to have lots of bests of times, each one topping the last."