Kyland Quotes
"The first time I really noticed Kyland Barrett, he was swiping someone’s discarded breakfast off a cafeteria table."
"In a place like Dennville, Kentucky, Darwin was the one who had his facts straight: only the strongest survived."
"I should know. I’d done it myself. I knew the shame. But I also knew the achy emptiness of a Monday morning after a long, hungry weekend."
"Something inside me suspected that more often it was people who disappointed God than the other way around."
"I was curious about him now. And suddenly that look on his face seemed more wary than immune or removed."
"The wind… She continued stirring the soup, humming some nameless tune and smiling a small smile to herself."
"I’ve still got my looks, Tenleigh. Eddie always says I’m the most beautiful woman in Kentucky."
"Tomorrow she’d take the sash off. Tomorrow she’d stay in bed all day."
"I knew he got good grades. I knew he must be smart despite his seemingly careless attitude."
"But what did I really know of God anyway? I didn’t even go to church."
"My goodness, Tenleigh," my mama singsonged, as she stood in the tiny kitchen, stirring a pot of something."
She shook her head. "That stuff makes me want to sleep all the time…makes me feel so funny."
"I’ve got a feeling you’re mostly trustworthy."
"I put my hands in my pockets and started the walk to the base of our mountain, my school backpack slung over my shoulder."
"I needed the distraction of my dreams. I needed the hope that life wouldn’t always be so hard."
"We didn’t live a life where wasting food was ever acceptable, even food that had been on the floor."
I walked in silence for a few minutes before I said, "Won’t Shelly be mad knowing you’re…protecting another girl from bobcats?"
"So as far as what it was about Tenleigh that interested me so much, it didn’t matter."
"She had this quiet about her—something soothing, a strange mix of strength and vulnerability."
"I’d be leaving soon and I’d never look back, not at beautiful, green-eyed Tenleigh Falyn or anyone else."
"All my life I was just a nothing, a nobody. And it hurt so badly."
"I wish I had known that it was dangerous for girls like us to pretend to be princesses. In that moment, dreaming of anything felt dangerous. Dreams failed, and when they did, reality hurt that much more."
"I never knew that it was going to be unfair to them. If you and I had sex, it’d be unfair to both of us."
"I think about how that little fire is hope. I think about how you have to keep it burning to get you through the hard times, the times that seem so painful you don’t want to continue on."
"I’ve got you, Tenleigh. You’re okay. You’re okay, Tenleigh. I’ve got you."
"The belief that I’ll get out of here someday—that I won’t be cold or hungry forever. It keeps me going. It’s my fire. It helps me do the things I need to do to survive, and it helps me hate myself less for doing them."
"I can’t work in that mine. And I can’t be hungry anymore. I’ll leave here, and I won’t look back. I’ll never think about Dennville, Kentucky, again."
"I’m not really the daughter of a Russian prince."
"I'm sorry for not being able to stay away from you. Sorry for not being able to stop thinking about you."
"You’re the biggest disappointment of my life. I’ll never forgive you—not as long as I live."
"I’m so sorry you’ve been holding all that pain inside for so long."
"I’ve spent so many lonely nights here in this bed."
"I want to be an engineer. I want to have a refrigerator that’s always stocked with food."
"It’s the first time I’ve talked about my mama, dad, and brother aloud since I lost them."
"I can still hear his laugh if I close my eyes."
"We walked in silence, my heart hurting and Kyland seeming to grow more tense by the moment."
"I couldn’t live in the same town as Kyland Barrett after that day—not for any longer than I had to."
"Thoughts of bobcats made my heart dip and right then and there, I decided two things: one, I was going to succeed in California, no matter how hard it was, and two, I’d never fall in love again. Not ever."
"Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home."
"It wasn’t always so bad. When your father first brought me to Appalachia, I loved it there, even despite the fact that we lived in a trailer in the woods."
"I fell so damn hard, Tenleigh. Standing right at this bookshelf. I gave you my heart and you weren’t even in the room."
"All those years ago, sometimes, you know, a basket of rhubarb or a couple tins of beans or something would show up on my front porch. I still don’t know exactly who it was, but…I think, I think they probably knew I was lying about my mama still living with me."
"You can lead a hillbilly to lavender, but you can’t make him grow it."
"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever…I have loved none but you."
"It was here. Right here. I fell so damn hard, Tenleigh. Standing right at this bookshelf. I gave you my heart and you weren’t even in the room."
"Simmer down, pillbilly. I’m not on the road to illegal self-medicating just yet. However, the operative word is yet."
"We’re not the same, you and I. We’re nothing alike."
"I did the best I could under pressure, without very much time to consider all the possibilities."
"Every day I went down into that dark mountain, but I still had to force myself to do it."
"It was truly like taking a trip down to hell the first time."
"It’s dark. So pitch-dark, there should be a different word to describe that kind of dark."
"I worried that you’d meet someone else. Fall in love."
"I’m going to make all your dreams come true. All my life."
"I did it because me going down there meant your freedom."