“I’m not sure about this.” “What? Your Buffy complex isn’t holding up?” Jordan chuckled. “Well, there is that.”

“I mean, we all have secrets we keep from each other. We all think things…and no one knows about it.” “Shanna, I know about the vibrator.”

“You really don’t like your father, do you?” He glowered. “Let’s just say he would have eaten me if my mother hadn’t been nearly dead from giving birth. She happened to be weaker at the time.”

“Jesus Christ. What does it take to kill that thing?” As if taking that as her cue, the girl stabbed the dagger into the center head’s left eye and shoved it in with her open palm. “It takes that,” the girl said, handing the dagger back to Shanna.”

“Some leaders are born women.”

“If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.”

“I watch, and the mothers watch. I do not know how to interact with the mothers. Am I them? They occasionally try to include me in a conversation, but it’s clear they don’t know what to make of me. I look over and smile when one of them makes a joke that is laughed at by all. They laugh, I chuckle—not too much, I don’t want to seem overeager, but enough to say “I hear you. I laugh with you. I share in the moment.” But when the chuckling is over I am still apart, something else, and no one is sure what I am. They don’t want to invest their time in the brother sent to pick up Toph while his mother cooks dinner or is stuck at work or in traffic. To them I’m a temp. A cousin maybe. The young boyfriend of a divorcee? They don’t care.Fuck it. I don’t want to be friends with these women, anyway. Why would I care? I am not them. They are the old model and we are the new.”