Magic for Liars: A Novel

MONDAY MORNING CAME ON LIKE a head cold.

Affirmation and illusion, bound up tighter than two snakes in the same egg.

Walls too high to ever turn into bridges.

I’ve always been good at letting silence put down roots.

There are more interesting things to be done with words.

They wouldn’t be able to resist the story, because they were all trying desperately to find the Thing, the elusive Something that would make every adult’s prediction come true: These are the best years of your life.

I tried not to feel temporary. Just for a few seconds. But trying not to feel something isn’t the same as not feeling it, and I knew it was just a matter of time before I was alone again.

Being brave means holding your fear in one hand and your responsibility in the other, and this kid was doing what he thought was right, even while he was pants-shittingly scared of whatever he’d found out.

There was something in the flavor of it that spoke to a desperate lostness,