Nina LaCour

“The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal smell.I should have lifted Ingrid's shirt to show the cuts. Look, I would've said to the nurse at her little desk, eyeglasses perched on her pointed nose. Help her.Instead, I reached my hand out and traced the words. The cuts were shallow, so the scabs only stood out a little bit. They were rough and brown. I knew that a lot of girls at our school cut themselves. They wore their long sleeves pulled down past their wrists and made slits for their thumbs so that the scars on their arms wouldn't show. I wanted to ask Ingrid if it hurt to do that to herself, but I felt stupid, like I must have been missing something, so what I said was, F*** you too, b****. Ingrid giggled, and I tried to ignore the feeling that something good between us was changing.”

“Ingrid's skin was the smoothest texture, so pale that it was transparent. I could see the blue veins that ran down her arms, and they made her seem fragile somehow. the way Eric Daniels, my first boyfriend, seemed fragile when I laid my head on his chest and heart his heart beating and thought, Oh. People don't always remember about the blood and the heartbeat. But whenever I looked at Ingrid, I was reminded of the things that kept her alive.”

“...I think that people who make judgements about other people they don't even know are shallow, and people who start rumors are shallow, and I really don't care what shallow people say about me.”

“How does your life move forward, when all you want to do is hold still.”

“I’ll make a swing so I can reach the places I can’t reach yet.”

“Each time a breeze starts, I feel the air all the way through me.”

“When the bell rings, and lunch is over, I decide to come back here tomorrow, and the next day. I tell myself it really isn’t that bad.”

“My best friend is dead, and I could have saved her. It’s so wrong so completely and painfully wrong, that I walked through my front door tonight smiling.”

“My room is so quiet and empty it hurts.”

“I sleep through the next day. Each time I go to the bathroom, I try not to look in the mirror. Once, I catch my reflection: it looks like I’ve been punched in both eyes.I can’t talk about the day that follows that.”

“Her suicide shook me deeply. It changed so much about how I view myself, the work I do with all of you.”

“Sometimes inspiration strikes; other times you have to hunt it down.”

“Crushes are supposed to be fun, aren't they? They definitely aren't supposed to be so torturous.”

“I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.”

“I don't want to hurt you or anybody s just please forget about e. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.I never laughed as hard as I laughed with you but now not even the laughing feels good.”

“I sort through the letters and pull out what I need for the beginning. They snap easily into place. And even though I thought I would need every letter, I finish the first sentence and realize that it’s all I have left to say.I MISS YOU.”

“The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.”