“I wanted to play with the idea of how we curate versions of ourselves that are rarely honest. And how easy it is to forget that we don’t really know each other, but we live in this social structure that presumes we do,” I explained.
“And are you scared?” Lily breathed. “For people to know who you really are?”
“I was,” I said. “But not anymore. There was this really great girl who taught me how to live my truth.”
“So tell me about her,” Lily said, stretching back on my bed. “Is she cute?”
“Eh, she’s okay.”
“Sasha!”
“Whatever, you know you’re gorgeous,” I said. “And brilliant. And brave. And that I really, really like you. And that I want you to be my girlfriend.”
I stared at her, completely unsure. I’d created my own safe space, and brought the people I cared about inside of it. I’d confronted what I’d lost by reminding myself what I still had left. I wanted that to be enough. I hoped it was enough.
“I want to say yes,” Lily said. “But there’s something I need to do first.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “Okay. Um.”
But then Lily leaned forward, holding my face in her hands, and brought her lips toward mine. Before I knew it, we were kissing.
And I don’t know if the stars fell from the sky, or the ocean thundered in applause, or the books on my shelf felt a tingle run up their spines, but I hope they did.
I read somewhere that everyone in California lives less than thirty miles from the nearest fault line. That we’re all constantly at risk of our lives falling apart. And yet no one seems to notice. Somewhere else, we all think. It’ll happen somewhere else. Which means that what happened to me could have happened to anyone.
It’s much easier to avoid these kinds of things. To build houses on top of fault lines and hope that no one ever realizes it could all crumble away at any moment. To think about dinner or homework instead of how it’s not a matter of if but when.
But the thing is, the idea of impending disaster doesn’t scare people away. Not to the extent that you’d think. Instead, we bolt our bookcases to the wall and stick our breakables to the shelves with putty. We go about our lives, and most days we forget.
Most days we want to forget. But sometimes we need to remember.
I used to be afraid of brokenness. I was terrified that if people saw the real me, they’d pack their bags and leave. That if I let myself follow my heart, it would only lead to regret, and make it that much harder to find my footing.
It wasn’t until I lost my mom that I truly learned what it felt like to have the ground pulled out from under me. That I learned what it was like to look around at my life and think, I don’t belong here. I don’t live here.
Except it turns out I do.
The world shoves into you, but you stand tall anyway.
Which is exactly what I did.
Acknowledgments
This page is basically the mattress tag. Do not remove or else warranty is void, and book might sprout legs and scuttle under your desk, where it will growl at you while building a nest out of bobby pins. I’m not saying this will definitely happen, but, like, it’s possible. And so, out of an abundance of caution, the following people are granted a lifetime warranty, tag or no tag: My incredible literary agent, Merrilee Heifetz, my brilliant editor and publisher, Katherine Tegen, my new ride-or-die editor, Sara Schonfeld, and the entire team at HarperCollins. This book owes a lot to the wonderful insights of Amy Spalding and Amy Rose Capetta, as well as the encouragement of Zan Romanoff, Maura Milan, Julie Buxbaum, Alexandra Monir, Emily Wibberly, and Austin Siegemund-Broka. Thank you, so very much, to my parents. And to my husband, Daniel Inkeles, who has been promoted from development to executive producer on this, the third book I’ve written since we met. Thank you to the many friends with whom I have discussed identity and queerness and art, and who will no doubt find pieces of our conversations stitched into this story. To my book club, who better not suggest we read this, even as a joke. To Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, where I frantically found myself writing the final pages of this story, because deadlines, what deadlines, oh look, a Netflix. Thank you to all of the queer writers and filmmakers and activists whose work paved the way for stories like this one, and who helped me realize that we have a responsibility to create the world we want to live in. And last, thank you to my readers. However you found my books, through a friend or a bookseller or a school assignment, I’m so glad you did. PS: Maybe check under your desk for stray bobby pins, just to be safe.
About the Author
Photo credit Emily Sandifer Photography
ROBYN SCHNEIDER is the bestselling author of The Beginning of Everything, Extraordinary Means, and Invisible Ghosts, which have earned numerous starred reviews, appeared on many state reading lists, and been published in over a dozen countries. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied creative writing, and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she earned a master of bioethics. She lives in Los Angeles, California, but also on Instagram. You can follow her @robynschneider.
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Books by Robyn Schneider
The Beginning of Everything
Extraordinary Means
Invisible Ghosts
You Don’t Live Here
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Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
YOU DON’T LIVE HERE. Copyright © 2020 by Robyn Schneider. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2020 by Helen Crawford-White
Cover design by Molly Fehr
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schneider, Robyn, author.
Title: You don’t live here / Robyn Schneider.
Other titles: You do not live here
Description: First edition. | New York : Katherine Tegen Books, [2020] | Audience: Ages 13 up. | Audience: Grades 10–12. |
Summary: “After the sudden death of her mother, Sasha moves in with her grandparents and realizes new truths about herself”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019056127 | ISBN 9780062568113 (hardcover)
Subjects: CYAC: Photography—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Grandparents—Fiction. | Death—Fiction. | Sexual orientation—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.S36426 You 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056127
* * *
Digital Edition JUNE 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-256814-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-256811-3
2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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You Don't Live Here Page 25
