“I never asked her how she was, because I didn't really think about how she was. I just thought about what she thought of me.”

“That Sindy. She was so damn smart. But I never told her that. I also never told her that I loved her, or that I loved the two little stretch marks she got from carrying Vera. Or that I loved that freckle on her forehead. I never told her that I loved her lasagna or that I thought her views on politics were clever. I just kept my mouth shut because I thought that made me safe.”

“Mom walked out on us, remember? Because she never got over her own baggage, not because of you or me, right?”

“I mean, I ignore plenty of stuff, like school spirit days and the dirty looks I get from the Detentionheads while I try to slink through the halls unnoticed. But there's something about telling other people what to ignore that just doesn't work for me. Especially things we shouldn't be ignoring.Hear that girl in your class is being abused by her stepfather and had to go to the clinic? Hear she's bringing her mother's pills to school and selling them to pay for it? Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Mind your own business. Don't make waves. Fly under the radar. It's just one of those things, Vera. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. If we're supposed to ignore everything that's wrong in our lives, then I can't see how we'll ever make things right.”

“I don’t have enough gross words in my gross vocabulary to describe how gross that gross thought is. Gross.”

“You know that saying about how you don’t know what you have until it’s gone? I already did know what I had, and now that she’s gone, I know even more.”

“But I don't ask him anything, because he's driving with that weird fake-happy look on his face, as if he's about to chop me up into little pieces and feed me to a tiger.”