Jessica Warman

“Solo quiero que vivan su vida; que sigan adelante sabiendo que cada instante es valioso, que cada día es un regalo; que vean la vida como lo que es: una serie de infinitas posibilidades, no solo de grandes penas sino también de grandes alegrías.”

“A person’s character, I realize, is never black-and-white. There is so much gray.”

“My favorite uncle was gay,” she says, “and he doesn’t like to dance, either.” She looks at Chad. “I don’t like that word. Fag. Don’t use it, okay?”

“Don’t say ‘sorry.’ Just cut it out.”

“It’s like they don’t even know how to stand beside each other without one groping the other. Their clinginess has always annoyed me.”

“Teenagers, as everyone knows, tend to believe they are immortal.”

“Why should they bother to go grocery shopping? It's not like their son needs to eat or anything like that.”

“Liz?""Hmmm?""Why do you care about me?"The question seems to startle me. It's uncharacteristic for Richie, who is usually so cool and self-assured. I open my eyes. "Why would you ask me that?""Because I don't understand. We're so different."I reach around the side of his face. Once again, I wipe fresh beads of sweat from his forehead. This time, I don't even bother wiping my hands on my pants. I lace my fingers into his again, and the two of us lie together, his damp clamminess seeping onto my made up face and my pretty clothes. Obviously, I couldn't care less."But we fit," I whisper. "Like this." And I tighten my grip around him."Mmm." He smiles, his eyes still closed. "You're right. We do.""Richie...I'm lying. I don't like you.""You don't?" His voice cracks. "No." I bring my lips close to his ear. "I love you Richie Wilson.”

“It occurs to me now that it isn't that I was always certain there was no truth to the rumor; it was that I didn't want to acknowledge the possibility there could be any truth to it.”

“You know what my friends and I used to call girls like you? Girls who had everything handed to them on a silver platter, who only cared about how they looked and who was dating the most popular guy?""What?"His grin grows wider. "We called you bitches. You girls were straight-up bitches.”

“There was never any question, not for either of us, that we'd stay together after high school. Richie Wilson was the love of my life.”

“He can't hear you." Alex sighs. "You aren't the sharpest sheep in the barn, are you?""That's not even the right metaphor," I snap, my attention still focused on Richie. "It's the sharpest pencil in the box.""Right." Alex nods. "Except you are a sheep. I'm not stupid, I just adjusted the metaphor to fit your persona-""Oh, shut up. Richie!" I scream again. Alex shakes his head.”

“I realise now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go so far away that I'd never be able to make my way home again. But I have no idea why.”

“Ad astra per aspera- From the mud to the stars”

“My father is an apparition, and my mother is semiconscious.”

“I remember my brother as such a gentle and loving child, the best big brother a girl could hope for, but I remember when I started to sense our family's world tilting on its axis, the kaleidoscope turning, when things started to go wrong. From then on, it was like we were still ourselves, but our lives played out as though reflected back to us from a funhouse mirror.”

“I'm not mean, I'm honest. Nobody is ever straightforward. But sometimes people need to hear the truth.”

“Cops, I've learned, are like vampires; they can't come in unless you invite them.”

“But I know he'll call, no matter what shape he's in. Even when I hate him, I love him. Even when he stops calling, I hear his voice. Will is my only brother. Without each other - without the invisible thread that binds us together, no matter how weak or frayed it becomes - we are simply drifting, all alone, without anything like a compass to know where we're headed.”

“You know, I believe that people need to find what they love to do most in the world, what they're best at, and then they need to use that ability to make the world better.”

“Just like every other year, there's a kind of death in the air as the summer is squelched by autumn. It is a lonely feeling.”

“Somehow she always seems blurred, as though to focus on anything that exists beyond a canvas might prove too difficult for her tiny frame to handle. When I was a very little girl, whenever she made me angry, I would imagine a strong wind simply blowing her away.”