What do you think?
Rate this book
309 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 18, 2014
Love is fucked-up, but love is all there is.
I love a boy who can’t get his shit together, but without him I can’t breathe. Thomas is love to me, and this love runs deeper than my blood and stronger than my own sense of instinct and survival. This love is forever-bound.
We kiss with our eyes open, and hers tell the story of us:
dependence, lies, and misery.
"You and cocaine make me crazy."
Dusty loves me too hard, too deep, too far, but it’s the kind of madness I crave. It hurts but it’s familiar to me and comfortable like hime, because loving this person has hurt for as long as I can remember.
I'm broken, made of pieces, but my pieces are made of more than just love.
"I love you," he whispers, breathless as he fills me.
"I love you, girl. I love you.”
There are some songs I can't listen to, but it's not because of the lyrics. Certain specific combinations of beats, bass and guitars take me right back too clearly to summertimes that were too innocent and are still too raw.
But the world is full of new music that's new to me, and I keep it going.
I cry to it.
I dance to it.
Our intentions were never vindictive. We’re selfish, not malicious. All we wanted was to be together, but addiction and dependence made true liars of us and turned our innocent love into crazy love.
“I hate you,” I whisper in the dark.
Trouble places his cold hand over my mouth. “Tell me you love me, Bliss.”
I show him away.
“Like I could ever not love you.”
"I don't care where he's been or what he's done. I'll love bloody knuckles and a filthy conscience just as much as clear blue eyes and the warmest laugh. High as a kite or in tears on his knees, he can be gone as long as he's right here. I don't care."
"I try to remember the last time I looked at my girl through non-addicted eyes. I've been lit through each I love you, spun through each touch, and drunk-wasted through each don't ever leave me. All the affection I've ever shown this girl has been habit-stained and guilty. She never had a chance against a monster like me."
"Dusty loves me too hard, too deep, too far, but it’s the kind of madness I crave. It hurts but it’s familiar to me and comfortable like home, because loving this person has hurt for as long as I can remember."
"This longing, this hidden inconsolability, heartbreaking with no clear end in sight, is who we are. It’s who we've always been."
I lift my own hood from the sweater love gave me years ago. The cotton is worn thin, and Castor is faded on the back, but it doesn’t mean any less to me. And when I’m in bed and Thomas is out doing whatever it is that he does, it’s all I have to remind myself that he wasn’t always this way. There was a time when we were innocent and genuine, and young, stupid in love.
Love’s sheltered here, but she’s my shelter, and knowing you’d die without someone isn’t romantic. But I would.Delinquents is keeping a secret, because the truth is too ugly to tell.
The truth is not easy. My truth: I love a lost cause. I love a failure, and I lost myself in him when I was nine years old.But the truth is all you have and you’ll bleed and die for it.
I place my hands on the sides of his cool face and whisper, “Tell me a secret.”Delinquents is loving a drug addict and knowing you shouldn’t, but knowing you can’t stop.
His body relaxes.
“I don’t want to be a secret anymore, baby.”
This is the part where I should tell him, “It’s too late. We’re too wrong.” Instead, I say softly, “Do you really wish you could hate me?”
I love a boy who can’t get his shit together, but without him I can’t breathe.I bet you never thought you’d miss the old days where their biggest problem was Bliss overhearing bathroom conversations. I bet you never thought it could get worse than that. But while reading Delinquents I found myself crying just reminiscing about those days.
I miss cream soda floats and snow boots that saved the world. I miss being on the phone with her talking about nothing at all. I miss the times when she melted over my touches simply because she loved me – only because she loved me.Because somewhere along the line, innocence was lost and so were they. Bliss and Dusty never really had a good foundation. Their love has always hurt in some way or another, but there was a time when the good overruled the bad, and now I’m just not sure that it does anymore.
You want me to hold your hand while you kill us both? What the fuck am I supposed to do, Thomas?Bliss was just a baby, too small to carry Dusty’s weight, but it didn’t stop him from stacking it on her shoulders. And as the years passed, Bliss grew stronger out of necessity and more bitter too. But Dusty is all she knows and Bliss is all he can feel.
I've been lit through each I love you, spun through each touch, and drunk-wasted through each don't ever leave me. All the affection I've ever shown this girl has been habit-stained and guilty. She never had a chance against a monster like me.I’ve cried, because this love is a struggle and it’s never-ending. I’ve cried, because the hopelessness of this situation choked me. I’ve cried, because this is just so raw and so real. It’s kids growing up, following the wrong path and crashing face first to the ground. It’s thinking youth lasts forever and nothing matters but you and I. It's I don't give a fuck and desperately needing to keep not giving a fuck. It’s needing coke to be able to handle what you really need. It’s loving someone so much that you sacrifice yourself for that love. And it’s knowing you will hold his hand while he kills you both, because that’s your deal.
I’m just a girl with a broken heart, half-alive. Without him, that’s my deal.
"We kiss with our eyes open, and hers tell the story of us: dependence, lies, and misery."
"This is the youth of the nation: torrid, displaced, slutty, and drunk. It's the same people doing the same thing every weekend, promising themselves they won't grow up to be like their parents and swearing that one line won't change shit."
"Disease spreads, physically and mentally. Their laughs are corroded and their skin is melting. It's boys in men's bodies and girls doing grown-up things. We're all clueless and seeking, taking too many chances."
Bliss
"My truth: I love a lost cause. I love a failure, and I lost myself in him when I was nine years old."
“We’re two kids who fell hopelessly in love.”
Love, terrified and unbelieving, I'm the one asking now. Love?
Love, his pulse vows as sincerely as a prisoner can. Love.
But I hear it.
In between every stifled beat of my name, I hear Dusty's heart telling him to let us go.
I won't be satisfied until she splits me open and touches me on the inside. I want her fingertips to dance on vertebrae, and I want her arms to get tangled in veins and arteries. It'll be enough when she's elbow deep, coated in my life source. I need this girl to break apart rib bones and puncture lungs to reach for my heart. I want her to rip the right ventricle from the left, just to feel the very center of where my heart beats for her.
"That's you," I'd say. "That's where you are."
I close my eyes and I can still feel Thomas inside and all over me. I swallow, and the sullen selfish boy who carries my life in his lungs has dug himself so deeply into me, I swear I taste him on the back of my tongue.
Tap, tap, tap.
But love has made me weak.
Sniff.
I let him have Her.
My heartbreaker lifts my chin, pushing hair away from my face. "It's okay. It's better...It is."