“I don't eat bread.' Is she pouting? It's hard to tell. She's had a lot of chemicals injected into her face.”

“I think the way I feel when I look at Evan comes from her. In pictures taken the day she married my dad, she was reckless, laughing, spinning around in circles. She looked like her whole world was him. She looked a kind of happy I can't even imagine.I don't want that. I don't want to be like that. I don' want to feel the way she did because I know what happens when you do. You love with your whole heart, with everything, and you wake up one morning and kiss someone good-bye the way you always do except you mean it as good-bye forever. ”

“As it turned out, she was alone after all. She prayed that he'd come back to her, because she missed him and needed her connection, her fix.”

“She looked at me for real and saw I was serious. She saw I knew she was for me like you know that tomorrow morning the sun will rise.”

“She became a story, one I have mostly forgotten. One I can't end because she died a long time ago.”

“I knew from Brianna that being beautiful wasn’t all great. Brianna had changed in middle school. One day we were both seventh graders and the next, she was a supermodel who had a seventh grader for a best friend.”

“She has no idea who I am, not really. She's just someone who's noticed me because the video and she'll forget what she's said before the day is over. Me? Not so much, but I go on, my legs shaking and a mix of anger and despair burning inside me.”