“Sittin’ in a café in dark glasses sippin’ coffee dunkin’ doughnuts while it’s sunny thinking guns guns guns and I’ve got pockets full of bullets and a suitcase full of money and a fuckin’ awful headache and a police rifle that fires dummies and I’m listening to Barney because she really wants to tell me all the fifty million reasons why she’s feelin’ fuckin’ funny and she wants to kill her mummy and she wants me to kill her daddy but there really is no logic to the way we’re spending Sunday because we don’t know where we’re going and we’ve been drinking since last Monday and Booga’s sharpening sticks and he’s looking like a monkey and I’m waiting for my tank and I know it will look chumly because Dobson is my man and he’s part of my fuckin’ family and when I see him next I’m gonna buy him half a shandy.”

“Want to make out?”“With who?” she asks, not bothering to look up.“Me.”She lifts her head from her book just long enough to give me a once-over. “No, thanks,” she says, then goes back to her homework.She’s fuckin’ with me. She’s got to be fuckin’ with me, right? “Because of that pendejo Tuck?”“No. Because I don’t want Madison’s leftovers.”Wait. Un. Momento. I’ve been called a lot of things before, but . . . “You callin’ me leftovers?”“Yeah. Besides, Tuck is a great kisser. I wouldn’t want you to feel bad when there’s no way you can compete.”That guy hardly owns a pair of lips. “Wanna bet?”

“Then he muttered like he was talking to himself, "I don't know if I want her to figure out she's fuckin' gorgeous so she isn't so fuckin' clueless when a player marks her or if I'm glad I finally got one who looks as good as her and has no fuckin' clue.""Are you wanting me to participate in this discussion or are you having a conversation with yourself?""You're participation isn't required," Sam replied... and I looked up to see him grinning.”

“I’m sayin’ that I care about you, I do it deeply and I have for a really fuckin’ long time. We’re gonna explore this and I hope to God the feelin’ I got is not wrong because I tried time and again to make it feel wrong but all it ever felt was right.”

“I want Sam to stop liking Craig.Now I guess maybe you think that’s because I am jealous of him. I’m not. Honest. It’s just that Craig doesn’t really listen to her when she talks. I don’t mean that he’s a bad guy because he’s not. It’s just that he always looks distracted.It’s like he would take a photograph of Sam, and the photograph would be beautiful. And he would think the reason the photograph was beautiful was because of how he took it. If I took it, I would know that the only reason it’s beautiful is because of Sam.I just think it’s bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees the girl is better than the girl actually is. And I think it’s bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera. It’s very hard for me to see Sam feel better about herself just because an older boy sees her that way.”

“I really wanted to see you,” I said.“And I really wanted to see you, too,” she said. “When Icouldn’t see you any more, I realized that. It was as clear as ifthe planets all of a sudden lined up in a row for me. I reallyneed you. You’re a part of me; I’m a part of you. You know,somewhere—I’m not at all sure where—I think I cutsomething’s throat. Sharpening my knife, my heart a stone.”