THE SERPENT KING

[autumnlands]

“He loathed the recognition that usually passed across people’s faces when they learned his name”

[autumnlands]

I don’t want to hate it here

[autumnlands]

[autumnlands]

“I ask a simple question”

She raised her finger. “A stupid question”

“A stupid question.”

[autumnlands]

“It’s saying we’re all born with seeds in us. And if we let them see the sunlight and air, they’ll grow through us and break us. Like a tree growing up through a sidewalk.”

[autumnlands]

Lydia: hey

Dill: hey what

Lydia: nothing just hey you’re being so quiet

Dill: don’t have much to say today, thinking

[autumnlands]

“Travis stood there for a second, watching him, the TV reflected in his father’s eyes”

[autumnlands]

“Exactly. We throw this High School a big middle finger”

[autumnlands]

[autumnlands]

“Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Lydia drive. The edges of her mouth. The way they turned up in an ear-perpetual smirk. How her lips moved almost imperceptibly as she unconsciously sang along with the music.”

[autumnlands]

“You keep forgetting that this life is nothing. The next is the only one that matters. I wish you’d remember that”

[autumnlands]

Your own blood will poison you

[autumnlands]

Lydia: *hug*

Dill: what was that for?

Lydia: because you look like your heart stepped on a lego

[autumnlands]

[autumnlands]

“Lives are more than the sum of their parts. I don’t think it’s fair to measure them in accomplishments. Especially with Travis.”

[autumnlands]

“Some fall in glorious ways. On green fields of battle as old warriors surrounded by friends, fighting for their homes, fighting cruelty. Some fall crawling in the dirt of Forrestville, Tennessee, in the dark, impossibly young and alone for no good reason at all”

[autumnlands]

Lydia: I miss Travis

Dill: he’d have had a lot of fun tonight