“I want to collapse. I want to fall on the sidewalk right them and drag myself to the ivy.”

“That's why you did it. You wanted your world to collapse around you. You wanted everything to get as dark as possible.”

“I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they'd heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors. To see beyond the relationships I once had, or maybe still had but that they didn't agree with.”

“I simply wanted a kiss. I was a freshman girl who had never been kissed. Never. But I liked the boy, he liked me, and I was going to kiss him. That's the story, the whole story, right there.”

“I sat. And I thought. And the more I thought, connecting the events in my life, the more my heart collapsed.”

“I pretended not to notice him. Not because I had anything against him, but because my heart and my trust were in the process of collapsing. And that collapse created a vacuum in my chest. Like every nerve in my body was withering in, pulling away from my fingers and toes. Pulling back and disappearing.”

“She wants to believe my excuses so bad. Every time I lie, she wants to believe me so much.”