Blurb:
“We were perfect together. Until we met.”
Misha
I can’t help but smile at the words in her letter. She misses me.
In fifth grade, my teacher set us up with pen pals from a different school. Thinking I was a girl, with a name like Misha, the other teacher paired me up with her student, Ryen. My teacher, believing Ryen was a boy like me, agreed.
It didn’t take long for us to figure out the mistake. And in no time at all, we were arguing about everything. The best take-out pizza. Android vs. iPhone. Whether or not Eminem is the greatest rapper ever…
And that was the start. For the next seven years, it was us.
Her letters are always on black paper with silver writing. Sometimes there’s one a week or three in a day, but I need them. She’s the only one who keeps me on track, talks me down, and accepts everything I am.
We only had three rules. No social media, no phone numbers, no pictures. We had a good thing going. Why ruin it?
Until I run across a photo of a girl online. Name’s Ryen, loves Gallo’s pizza, and worships her iPhone. What are the chances?
Fuck it. I need to meet her.
I just don’t expect to hate what I find.
Ryen
He hasn’t written in three months. Something’s wrong. Did he die? Get arrested? Knowing Misha, neither would be a stretch.
Without him around, I’m going crazy. I need to know someone is listening. It’s my own fault. I should’ve gotten his number or picture or something.
He could be gone forever.
Or right under my nose, and I wouldn’t even know it.
Rating: 5/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: Romance Fiction, New Adult Fiction
- Highly recommend for 17 years and above
- TW: Explicit language, Cheating (mentioned), sexually graphic scenes, depression, drug abuse, death of a sibling, bullying
Book Quotes:
- “We’re all ugly, Ryen. The only difference is, some hide it and some wear it.”
- “She can be a nightmare, but this still feels better than any dream.”
- “Alone, Empty, Fraud, Shame, Fear. Close your eyes.There is nothing to see out here.”
- “It gets better, you are important, and you can’t be replaced. Hang on. You’ll fing youre tribe.”
- “No kid wants to be different. They want to belong, they desire the approval of others, and they, most often, aren’t yet mentally strong enough to be able to stand alone. As we get older, though, most of us develop that capability. We learn that nothing feels better than truly loving yourself, even if it means those around you do not. We joyously find that we just don’t give a damn anymore. ”
- “I’m going to hell. I’m pretty sure she’d going to drag me there herself.”
- “You don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed. No one does you better than you. You can’t be replaced. Not everyone will see that, but only you need to.”
- “Life is fifty wrong turns down a bumpy road. All you can hope is that you end up somewhere nice.”
- “I have no life there if you’re not in it. You’re part of everything good I’ve ever done, Ryen. Please.”
- “It feels like shit to be alone. To be in a place full of people and feel like they don’t want you there. To feel like you’re at a party you weren’t invited to. No one even knows your name. No one wants to. No one cares. Are they laughing at you? Talking about you? Are they sneering at you like their perfect world would be so much better if you weren’t there, messing up their view? Are they just wishing you’d get the hint already and leave? I feel like that a lot. I know it’s pathetic to want a place among other people, and I know you’ll say it’s better to stand in a crowd and be wrong, but… I still feel that need all the time. Do you ever feel it? I wonder if the cheerleader feels it. When the music stops and everyone goes home? When the day is gone and she doesn’t have anyone to entertain herself with? When she removes her makeup, taking off her brave face for the day, do the demons she keeps buried start playing with her when there’s no one else to play with? I guess not. Narcissists don’t have insecurities, right? Must be nice.”
- “You kissed my hair while sticking me in the heart. But your house will break before I fall apart. -Punk”
- “My eyes burn with tears, and I’m so tired. So tired of holding back everything I feel and want to say. So tired of being someone I’m not and making mistakes that I didn’t have any fun making.”
- “We were perfect for each other. Until we met”
- “Misha, my best friend who got me into bed and fucked me with a lie.”
- “You loved me. We were besties. I lend you my eye shadow. But someday all you’ll be is someone I used to know. – Punk”
- “The world isn’t always what’s right in front of you, you know? It’s below, it’s above, it’s out there somewhere. Every burn of every light inside every house I see when I look down from the rooftop has a story. Sometimes we just need to change our perspective.
- And when I look down at everything, I remember that there’s more out there than just what’s going on in my house—the bullshit with my dad, school, my future. I look at all those full houses, and I remember, I’m just one of many. It’s not to say we’re not special or important, but it’s comforting, I guess. You don’t feel so alone.”
- “Speak your mind, and you give others permission to do the same.”
- “He’s a reminder of what I want to feel everyday, whether it’s with him or on my own. He’s taught me that who I am when I’m with him feels too good to sacrifice for the approval of everyone else. The way I dress, the guys I talk to, the games I play… it’s all plastic, and when I’m with him, I’m gold.”
- “You want to be loved without risking consequence, so you reach out to get the attention you need while enjoying the luxury of taking no responsibility for those words.”
- “You turn me on.” He cups my face, brushing my hair away from my eyes and a tear off my cheek.” “God, you turn me on. You’re driving me crazy. I want you to need my hands on you. Do you?”
- “I’ve wanted everything in my life to change for so long, and when it’s finally about to, my urge to escape slows down. I think that’s why people stay unhappy for so long, you know? Miserable or not, it’s easier to stick with what’s familiar. Do you notice that, too? How all of us just want to get through life as quickly and as easily as possible? And even though we know that without risk there’s no reward, we’re still so scared to chance it?”
- “Spread on your bravery, line the eyes and the lips,” I say under my breath as I write on the paper, “glue up the cracks and paint over the rips.”
- “Tell me I’m crazy for thinking you’re holding back from me as much as I’m hiding you.”
- “Don’t change, Ryen wrote in a letter once. There’s no one like you, and i can’t love you if you stop being you. I guess I shouldn’t say that, but I’m a little drunk right now-just came back from a party when I saw your letter-but what the hell? I don’t care. You knew I love you, right? You’re my best friend. So don’t ever change. This is a big ass world, and when we leave our small towns, we’re going to find our tribe. If we don’t stay true to ourselves, how will they recognize us? (Both of us, because you know we’re on the same tribe, right?) And even if it’s just the two of us, it will be the best.”
- “Reap, reap, reap, you don’t even know, all you did suffer is what you did sow.”
- “A picture is worth a thousand words, But my thousand words slice deeper. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, Fuck that. I’ve become a hide and seeker. Treat others how you want to be treated, But what if tonight I want to be burned? You told us it’s better to be safe than sorry, And little sister listened, but I was the one who learned. Reap, reap, reap, you don’t even know, All you did suffer is what you did sow! Necessitate, medicate, eradicate, resuscitate. Swallow your Pearls, but for me it was too late. Do better, be more, too many, too much, I’m about to fucking choke, I can’t force it down. So string up the little Wisdoms and wrap them ‘round my neck, I’ll strangle myself with your Pearls of Wisdom and die a wreck.”
- “Did you know that your open thighs are directly responsible for my renewable energy source?”
- “Anything to not need you, Anything to not fall for you, Anything to look at a girl who’s not you, But baby, there’s nothing but you.”
- “Longing, because I miss her. I miss talking to her as me. Lust greater than I’ve ever known, because we’re like this, it’s the only time she softens and changes and gives me an inch, and it’s a need that’s in my head just as much as my body. It keeps me on my toes.”
- “Those letters are everything. They’re her and me, kids just trying to figure themselves out and going through our growing pains. They’re where I first started to fall for her and need her. They’re my fucking songs and a part of me.”
- “And no matter how tough he acts, the stress of whatever situation he’s in is in there somewhere. Buried deep or right underneath the surface.”
- “Seven years, and this is how you want to meet, Angel?”
- “Eventually we all have to weigh what we want more: wanting back what we had or wanting what could be. To stay or to risk everything to move forward.”
- “It’s only eight o’clock in the morning, and I think I’ve already had enough boys for one day.”
- “I didn’t mean to lie, but I meant every kiss.”
- “I see you, like pictures in a frame, But I can’t touch, and I can’t be the same.”
- “He hurt me, and I hurt him, but shit happens and love doesn’t change. He makes me happier, he makes me stronger, and he knows everything and still wants me. If he can say the same, then this is it. The real thing.”
- “I miss you every day, I write. You’re my favorite place.”
- “Don’t you get it yet? You don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed. No one does you better than you. You can’t be replaced. Not everyone will see that, but only you need to.”
- “And I know right then and there I want to be the only girl he ever looks at like that.”
- “No one does me better than me. I close my eyes again, hearing what he’s saying. I changed, because I didn’t think what I brought to the table was worthy enough. I let them make me believe that, but who made them authorities? I may no longer be adored, but I might not be so miserable, either. And I may eat alone, but that’s not such terrible company, is it?”