“I guess that's the danger with firsts—you lose all sense of proportion. So I made a fool of myself, even though I didn'trealize it at the time. I was so devoted to him.”

“I liked this guy a lot. And I thought he liked me a lot, but in truth he didn’t really like me at all. He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything-he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that’s the danger with flirts-you lose all sense of proportion. So I made a fool of myself, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. I was so devoted to him.”

“He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything - he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that's the danger with firsts - you lose all sense of proportion.”

“So I said I wanted you to stay, even though nothing could stay the same.”

“I'm still upset with my mother, though. And scared.If you lose me, I remember her saying when I was little and we'd go to a department store, just let one of those salesladies know, and they will take you to where I can find you. Even though I'm seventeen, I guess I still thought this would always be true-- that there would always be that lost-and-found, and not the lost-and-still-lost that I am now trapped inside.”

“I say good-bye to the part of myself that misses him so much.”

“It daunted me that you were so beautiful, that you were so at ease in social situations, as if every room was heliotropic, with you at the center. And I guess it daunted you that I had so many more friends than you, that I could put my words together like this, on paper, and could sometimes conjure a certain sense out of things. The key is to never recognize these imbalances. To not let the dauntingness daunt us.”