“Want me to drive?” Wade asks. “I won’t take any detours.”I slam on the brakes and come to a dead stop right in the middle of the road. “Sure. Why not? My life is one big fucking detour,” I yell. Then I bang my head on the steering wheel and I can’t help it. I start to cry.”

“Where we goin’?” Wade whispers to me as we approach the white picket fence that surrounds the row of wooden crosses.For all I know my grandmother could be planning to shoot us and bury us with the rest of the family, but I don’t think it would help to share this notion with Wade”

“I won’t offer you a tired admonition to avoid my path. I won’t advise you to stay on the straight and narrow. I won’t suggest that you make good choices. I won’t even tell you to do the right thing. You can get that kind of advice from teachers and parents and TV evangelists, and if you are like me, you wouldn’t listen anyway. I just make one suggestion.Know what path you’re on.”

“I have a class in Hermosa Beach that starts at eight, but …”I wanted to offer to pick up her car, drive her back to Hermosa Beach, take her to the moon.”

“Did you know that seventy-five to eighty percent of juvenile offenders can’t read at grade level?”“Really?” This was news to me.“Your world becomes a much smaller place if you can’t read. You have far fewer options. It’s not the only factor, but it’s a big one. If they want to know how big to build a prison,all they have to do is look at the illiteracy statistics.”“They knew I was coming.”“You or someone like you.”“You knew it too, all those years ago, back in Quincy. That’s why you tried to help me. Because you knew I was coming here.”“Here or someplace like here.”

“Are you a virgin?” I asked, “A virgin who’s gonna tear out my heart?”“Yes … no … wait.” She looked at me. “I’m not going to rip out your heart.”“Thanks for clearing that up,” I said“Is that okay with you?” she asked softly.“Okay with me?”,“No, it’s not okay at all,” I replied.“Why not?” She looked down at her toes.“I want you to rip out my heart.”She smiled, pressed her hand to my chest, and said, “I could never do that.”You already have, I thought as I took her hand in mine”

“I got words in me, Jess, fighting to find a way out. Sometimes there's so many words and they get so crowded in my skull I think my head is gonna explode. I want to write them down. I've tried, but most of the time my thoughts and my feelings are bigger than what I can get on paper.”