Sarah Ockler

“I like him, okay?""No you don't. You 'well I'm un I don't know um I guess yeah maybe' him.”

“Hear you're training again," she says. "For the Capriani Cup.""Who told-""You did," she says. "Just now.”

“I wish we could get a real tree," Bug says. "Then at least we'd have one real tradition, since that whole Santa thing's a bust. I mean, if parents are gonna make up a cool story, at least do it realistically. Like, have the guy use FedEx or something-no way reindeer can fly with all that weight.”

“You think we live in Norway or something? Amir Jordan is Pakistani. There's also an Asian guy, some Puerto Ricans, and the starting left wing has, like, carrot-hair. he must be Irish. It's the whole UN over there.”

“And I don’t want to talk about it, because one day his name will brush against my lips in her presence, and through and involuntary blushing of the cheeks, a misting of the eyes, a breath drawn too tightly, or a single tear, the secret I’m supposed to keep locked up forever will be revealed”

“Not only does he reduce my best friend’s emotional state to something akin to an annoying rash, he also plants a new seed in my already overcrowded brain”

“They didn’t hold Frankie as she sobbed for hours at a time without talking. They didn’t make sure she ate even when she wasn’t hungry. They didn’t do her homework when she couldn’t concentrate, or explain to our teachers why she was late to every class.”

“The only excuse I can think of is the truth – she’s broken. Until someone can figure out how to fix her, what else can she do?”

“Somewhere along the seashore, a strange wind blows over the ocean, and twenty oblivious boys simultaneously look up from their surfboards.”

“When someone you love dies, people ask you how you're doing, but they don't really want to know. They seek affirmation that you're okay, that you appreciate their concern, that life goes on and so can they. Secretly they wonder when the statute of limitations on asking expires (its three months, by the way. Written or unwritten, that's about all the time it takes for people to forget the one thing that you never will).”

“Sometimes I think we all feel guilty for being happy, and as soon as we catch ourselves acting like everything is okay, someone remembers it's not.”

“But when he died, I saw-- nothing. There was nothing left to see.”

“I'm fine, thanks for not asking.”

“Same people. Same hellos and goodbyes. Same beginnings and endings. Same befores and afters.”

“Anna," he said, dragging his frosted fingers through my hair."Don't you know what it means when a boy pulls your hair at your birthday party?" "No." Just, then, i didn't know what anything meant.”

“What is the statute of limitations on feeling guilty for cheating on a ghost?”

“We have the ability to pass our memories on. We just have to tell them to someone.”

“It was as though my heart made room for two truths that night—one real, the other safe and familiar and desirable.”

“You know, when a person is murdered, you can miss that person and put all of your anger into hating the killer, even if you don‘t know who the killer is. You also have the choice of forgiveness. But when someone takes her own life, she is the killer.”

“How can I fault her for trying to bury a truth that when exposed to air and sunlight could only hurt the ones she loves?”

“you can‘t promise yourself that you‘re not going to fall in love with someone. I‘m not exactly a relationship expert, but I don‘t think it works that way”

“We all long for what could have been.”

“I wonder how much we don‘t see. How much of our lives we witness and accept as truth when the rest of the iceberg—the heaviest, bulkiest part—is buried and invisible.”

“It‘s complicated. I think when bad things happen—whether someone dies or people argue or split up—you get to a point where it‘s just too hard to go back. There‘s so much lost. So many versions of the truth. So many versions of how things might‘ve turned out differently. We all long for what could have been. For some people, it‘s just easier to move forward and try to forget.”

“I‘m not in love with him. I‘m in love with the way he erases things.”

“It got him killed, but at least he felt something.”

“Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to make it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I‘ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting.”

“I understand how easy it would be to lose yourself in the heart of another. It‘s frightening. Exhilarating. An ocean with no lifeguard.”

“Sometimes I think I'm an alien that accidentally fell off the mother ship, destined to wander among clueless earthling parents for all eternity.”

“I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.”

“Sometimes you gotta just take things for what they are and appreciate them, not try to label it or explain it. Explanations take the mystery out of it, you know?”

“Sweetheart, when you say Matt's name, you have the same look in your eyes that he'd get whenever he'd say yours.”

“If I could find the butterfly that flapped its wings before we got into the car that day, I would crush it.”

“I accept the hard reality that I maybe might possibly be just the slightest tiniest littlest bit kinda sorta interested in him.”

“In your entire life, you can probably count your true friends on one hand. Maybe even on one finger. Those are the friends you need to cherish, and I wouldn't trade one of them for a hundred of the other kind. I'd rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people who aren't real. People who are just passing time.”

“Are we all on the same page, Delilah?The same page? I don't even think we're even in the same library, but no need to bring that up.”

“Like the stars, fading with the halo of the vanishing moon. Like the ocean, falling and whispering against the shore. Nothing ever really goes away - it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.”

“Every morning, I wake up and forget just for a second that it happened. But once my eyes open, it buries me like a landslide of sharp, sad rocks. Once my eyes open, I'm heavy, like there's to much gravity on my heart.”

“Doesn't matter how many people are in the crowd anymore, Delilah. Ten or ten thousand, I'm still only singing for one.”

“bienvenue au fucking Canada!”

“Oh, so you're untouchable, huh, Delilah? You and your fucked-up relationship with your mother and everyone else in your life? Great. Does getting pissed at me make it better? does it fix ANYTHING?""You! Can't! Fix! Me!”

“I take a deep breath,count to ten,and bury it,way down deep”

“I just swallow hard.Nod and smile.One foot in front of the other.I'm fine, thanks for not asking.”

“When I kissed Sam, I was so scared of erasing Matt. But now I know that I could never erase him. He'll always be a part of me - just in a different way. Like Sam, making smoothies on the beach two thousand miles away. Like Frankie, my voodoo magic butterfly finding her way back home in the dark. Like the stars, fading with the halo of the vanishing moon. Like the ocean, falling and whispering against the shore. Nothing ever really goes away - it just changes into something else. Something beautiful. ”

“The guilt of not telling Frankie about Matt and me is overwhelming, but it's a pale second to the violation I feel that she read my most private, raw thoughts and destroyed them. She broke into my carefully guarded heart, stole the only remaining connection I had to Matt, and turned it into a monstrosity.”

“He loved to read. He loved words, the way they string together into sentences and stories. He wanted to study them, to know and create them, to share them with the world. ”

“Sometimes looking at Frankie is like seeing Matt through a glass of water - a distorted composition of him with all the right parts, but mixed up and i the wrong order. As I watch her sing his old song, I can't shake the feeling that he just stopped by to say hello. ”

“What if I come back and I'm different, Anna? Sometimes you go to a place where everything is different, and everything you ever know changes, and no one ever looks at you the same? ”

“If Frankie and I hadn't wanted ice cream that stupid day, he'd still be alive. If I hadn't gotten his heart all worked up kissing him every night since my birthday, he'd still be alive. If I'd never been born, he'd still be alive. If I could find the butterfly that flapped its wings before we got into the car that day, I would crush it. ”

“...but I want to spend the whole trip out here, with the ocean replenishing her treasures like an old shopkeeper as I sleep alongside her in the sand. ”