“Maybe the way he tried to corral me my entire junior year of high school like I was some wayward cow and he was the ranch’s most enthusiastic farmhand?”

“I’m in my junior year but I can’t take it anymore. The beige walls, the scent of linoleum and used lockers, the shrill bell between classes. High school is sucking the life out of me.”

“What had my scary thought been? That Olaf was sincere. In some crazy,pathological way, he like-liked me. As in boyfriend-liked me. Not just for fucking or slaughter, but maybe, just maybe, he actually wanted to date me like one human being to another. He seemed to have no clue how to interact with a woman in a way that wasn't terrifying, but he was trying. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he was trying.”

“Nathan laughed with little real humor. "Maybe that's because I was," he said. "I disapproved of the way Andrew treated you. And i really disapproved of the way I felt about you. You were my roommate's high school sweetheart, and even now, when you're crying over him, I just . . ." I felt like I was standing on the precipice, and my decision to jump or not was the most important one I could make in my life. "What?" I whispered. He look at me, and his eyes were very, very serious. "I just want to kiss you," he said.”

“But then over the years I spent time with her because of her, because in junior high school she drowned the dolls in chocolate pudding and called it 'Little People in Deep Shit: a Retrospective.”

“In middle school, Renaldo was voted most likely to vote in a Presidential election. But he was the most obvious choice to receive that accolade, since he was the only 17-year-old at school.”