Extraits

-Je vois tout ce que je veux, aussi longtemps que je peux, a-t-il continué. Je vois une femme qui porte la plus jolie mine renfrognée, comme si elle avait deux ans et qu'elle venait de se faire dire qu'elle n'aurais pas de bonbon. Je vois un gars qui est allée se faire faire un perçage à travers le gland, parce qu'il voulait vivre encore un peu de temps dans son monde à elle.

[...]

- Je vois une femme magnifique avec un corps de déesse et le gars qu'elle rend fou de désir pour elle.

[...]

- Je vois mille nuits sur des comptoirs de cuisine, dans des douches ou des piscines et sur des canapés, où il va la baiser jusqu'à ce qu'elle crie.

- Je vois ses yeux à elle et ce dont ils ont l'air quand elle jouit.

— Fallon, a-t-il commencé, et j’ai levé les yeux vers lui. On n’a plus 16 ans.

— Tu fais comme si tu n’avais pas de cœur, comme si tu te contentais de nettoyer ta conscience morale de toute la douleur que tu causes. Mais je le vois, Fallon. En vérité, tu as envie de moi comme une dératée.

Maintenant, il avait disparu.

Je ne l’avais pas oublié, bien entendu. Seulement, il n’avait plus d’importance.

Madoc est resté immobile, son visage s’est durci un peu et son menton s’est soulevé un peu, mais à part ça, son corps était comme de la pierre. Je ne savais pas s’il était en colère, blessé, perplexe ou agacé. Mais je savais qu’il réfléchissait. Je l’ai regardé avec sa carrure imposante, son bas de pyjama noir accroché au bas de ses hanches, traverser ma chambre à coucher, prendre mon large fauteuil rembourré gris, et le placer devant mon miroir sur pied.

— Viens ici, a-t-il ordonné.

And as I stood there, trying to find a comfortable place to rest my eyes and wondering what the hell to do with my hands, I realized that I was not my mother’s daughter anymore. I was not the hair in the soup, the fly in the ointment, or the stain on the sheets. I might not be Jared Trent’s favorite person, but he certainly wasn’t mine, either. It was past time that I stopped wondering if I was good enough for others and started wondering if they were good enough for me.

“Writing can be very public and also very private. I want you to forget the rules today,” I said. “I’m going to give you twenty or so minutes. Go put in your iPods, spread out, go to the grass, and write. This isn’t graded. I don’t care about grammar or conventions. I want you to write to yourself as if you’re going to read this twenty years from now. Share who you are right now. What you want. Where you want to go. What you hope to accomplish and what you hope to gain from friends and family. There are no rules. Just write to an older you."

Jax had turned on me.

He’d morphed into a loose cannon, and I saw the same fierce temper I’d seen on Jared. The same temper I’d seen on my father. But strangely, neither of them had come to mind.

The moment he pulled the knife, all I thought about was how to get him back. I didn’t think about running. I was scared for him, not of him.

All I saw was Jax. What had happened to him, and how was I going to catch him when he fell?

If there was one thing I craved day after day, it was the feeling of want.

We want a house, a car, a fancy fucking vacation, and prestige, so what do we do? We go to school, and we get jobs we hate to pay for the things we want. We deal with people we don’t like and waste years of our lives sitting in stark, fluorescent-lit rooms and listening to coworkers who bore us so we can pay for a small amount of precious time to enjoy what makes us happy. To achieve a fraction of our lives just feeling as if it was all worth it.

We sacrifice to earn.

“I caught Liam at a bar with another woman,” I started, not sure why. “I walked up to them—as they were making out—and grabbed a knife off the nearby bar and stabbed the table where they sat.” I twisted my embarrassed smile to the side, feeling the blush heat my skin. “And then I proceeded to wave the knife in front of both of them and threaten his loss of genitals,” I finished, closing my eyes, wincing at my idiocy. “Yeah.” I nodded, knowing what he must’ve been thinking. “I did that.”

“Badass.” He sounded proud. “Good for you.”

I opened my eyes and shrugged, still feeling stupid. “It was a butter knife,” I mumbled.