The Vanishing Half

Important men became martyrs, unimportant ones victims. The important men were given televised funerals, public days of mourning. Their deaths inspired the creation of art and the destruction of cities. But unimportant men were killed to make the point that they were unimportant—that they were not even men—and the world continued on.

She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.

In the dormitories, she’d been surrounded by the relentlessly ambitious, but in that West Hollywood apartment building, all of the neighbors she met were people whose dreams of fame had already been dashed. Cinematographers working at Kodak stores, screenwriters teaching English to immigrants, actors starring in burlesque shows in seedy bars. The people who did not make it were ingrained in the city; you walked on stars emblazoned with their names and never realized it.

You couldn’t separate the shame from being caught doing something from the shame of the act itself.

Her back ached, but pain, at least, felt familiar. A hurting body kept you alert, awake, which was better than how numb she’d felt on the train, moving but trapped in place.

You can escape a town, but you cannot escape blood. Somehow, the Vignes twins believed themselves capable of both.

People thought that being one of the kind made you special. No, it just made you lonely. What was special was belonging with someone else.