Extraits

"C'était la plus belle chose qu'un adulte (qui n'était ni mon père ni ma mère) m'ait dite. Je savais que Mme Quintana voyait quelque chose en moi qu'elle aimait. Quoi que ce soit, ce devait être beau, mais je le voyais également comme un poids. L'amour m'avait toujours semblé être quelque chose de trop lourd pour moi."

“Even though summers were mostly made of sun and heat, summers for me were about the storms that came and went. And left me feeling alone.

Did all boys feel alone?

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.”

“Water was something he loved, something he respected. He understood its beauty and its dangers. He talked about swimming as if it were a way of life.”

“See, the thing about guys is that I didn't really care to be around them. I mean, guys really made me uncomfortable. I don't know why, not exactly. I just, I don't know, I just didn't belong. I think it embarrassed the hell out of me that I was a guy. And it really depressed me that there was the distinct possibility that I was going to grow up and be like one of those assholes.”

“I didn't care because what mattered is that Dante's voice felt real. And I felt real. Until Dante, being with other people was the hardest thing in the world for me. But Dante made talking and living and feeling seem like all those things were perfectly natural. Not in my world, they weren't.”

“Those words tasted bitter.

But the worst part was that those words were living inside me. And they were leaking out of me. Words were not things you could control. Not always.”

“What do you love, Ari? What do you really love?"

"I love the desert. God, I love the desert."

"It's so lonely."

"Is it?"

Dante didn't understand. I was unknowable.”

“He tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.”

“All this time.

This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I'd always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.”

“Summer was here again. Summer, summer, summer. I loved and hated summers. Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That's why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.”