Just Like Home Quotes
"The Crowder House clung to the soil the way damp air clings to hot skin."
"Hope was a liability at the Crowder House."
"Some things, Vera knew, were made to die."
"Vera examined this new wood and tried to add it to the things she knew, the things that would rid her of foolish ideas about forgiveness and homecoming."
"The bugs are outside. The sounds are inside."
"Her father locks eyes with her. He lifts a finger to his lips."
"Her father nods gravely. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are flushed."
"Sometimes they get hurt. And I have to help them escape."
"I hope she dies tonight, so you'll both be gone tomorrow."
"Inside the house, inside the old dining room, in the newly-rented hospital bed, Daphne waited, too."
"I laid my head down on the pillow that had once supported Francis Crowder’s rest, and I breathed in the air that had once filled his lungs, and I wondered how such a quiet house could create such a vile, unspeakable, repugnant monster."
"Everything you’d ever known had just been torn away from you. Everything was cold and everything was awful and you didn’t understand what had just happened to you."
"You were the most selfish thing that ever was, claiming every inch of love your new family could scrape together, demanding it all for yourself without giving any back at all."
"You came into the world on a wave of pain and exhaustion and that was just the beginning. All you knew then was needing and wanting and getting."
"There’s nothing so pure as a yawning pit of need, and that’s the kind of animal you were."
"I existed for a reason then. I existed for you."
"My life began the moment I laid eyes on you."
"You were mine and I was yours. We’d be tangled up together until the day one of us died."
"I remember thinking that maybe we’d both die at the same time, so I’d never have to imagine a world where there was you without me or me without you."
"I felt the weight of you—of who you’d be in our little family and in the world—and that’s when I became whole."
"I hope you’ll tell me. You could be an integral part of my work here. You could really help me understand this place, if you just open your mind a little."
"You have no idea how much I kept everyone away from you. They wanted to run you out of town on a rail, do you know that? They could see the grease inside you."
"The grease that’s in you, the filth, they saw it and so did I. I locked you up to protect everyone from your foulness."
"Your father and I need to have a conversation."
"The house was quiet, still, as if all the air in it had been condensed into a single point."
"Going out, she saw now, had been a mistake. This house, the house her father built, the house where her mother would die—this place was safe. This place knew her."
"Vera is twelve years old and her lip is bleeding. It’s bleeding a lot. She has her hands cupped under her chin, but blood is running between her fingers anyway, dripping onto the cement of the curb between her knees."
"I have to live with it, and so do you, not that you care."
"This is the side of her mother she so rarely gets to see, the side she so deeply longs for."
"I’m proud of you for lying to your mom."
"I should have talked to you about this sooner. I’ve failed you, and I’m sorry."
"It’s men. Boys are one thing, but men are another."
"There’s something about his apology that snags at Vera."
"You can tell because they’re filled with a, with a foulness, a kind of grease, that makes them evil."
"She’s only ever kept one secret from him before and it’s not one her mother knows about."
He loves me," Daphne says crisply. "Your relationship with him is your own business.
"It was uncanny, seeing this completely new emotion on his face."
"Brandon didn’t say anything for a while."
"Brandon is what happened. This is all Brandon’s fault."
"Her bike lies on its side, half on the sidewalk and half in the road, one wheel slowly rotating."
"She imagines—as she imagines so often these days—that someone is with her."
"She wasn’t sure if she should take her shoes off or not."
"The terror had drained out of her, leaving extra gravity behind."
"The deep dark womb of sleep began to wrap itself around her."
"Stitches snapped beneath her palm, pop pop pop."
"She grabbed at the topsheet, her entire body rigid with terror."
"The basement door had a pulse in Vera’s memory."
"Hunger stirred in the depths, sending echoing ripples up her spine."
"The doorknob was as cool as a dead thing against her palm."
"Vera blinked hard against the fluorescent lights of the furniture store."
"Vera is twelve and three-quarters years old and she can’t stop picking at the band-aid on her finger."
"I loved you too, and I hated you. I’ve always hated you."
"The key around her neck rings like a tuning fork."
"Vera’s elbows ache from propping her up on the wood floor beneath her bed."
"You can’t learn a lesson, Vera reasons, when there’s filth inside you."
"Fortunately, Vera is good at solving problems."
"I would have told you before, but you were too busy being an asshole," she whispers back.
"Don’t worry," she whispers. "I’m going to help you get better."
"It’s okay," her friend says, wrapping her up in warmth as she sobs. "Hush now, Vera-baby. Hush now."
"This is my home," she says. "And you’re just passing through it."
"Don’t worry. I’ll let you stay. Someone’ll need to give tours, and I’ll be too busy by then."
"You will not drive me away from this house," she said. "You will not be the last one here."
"He’s coming back soon," Daphne said again. "You should go. You should run."
"You remember. In the basement that night, with Brandon? I couldn’t soak it up fast enough. I’m better with light and sound than I am with blood."
"The grease isn’t real. Dad had a delusion about men. He thought they were full of grease, but the grease isn’t real."
"I tried not to let you hear. She told him that he’d get it on you if he didn’t do his work. The guilt ate him up, you know, but he wanted to be good for her. And for you."
"But just because the grease wasn’t in any of them doesn’t mean it isn’t real."
"It’s done. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore."
"Are you sure you’re okay? You must have been so afraid. I’ve always tried to keep you from having to be afraid."
"Don’t you worry about me. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been."