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

“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. ”

“I do not fall. I fell so hard so long ago there is nothing left for me to land on. I justkeep falling and falling and falling.”

“There's no good way to die, you know? No way I've seen, anyway. It all ends with tubes and bedpans and IVs and I just-- smoking gets me out of there. Gets me outside, gets me away from all the--""Sick people?" I say, and she shakes her head."Away from my life.”

“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.”

“I love books. I like that the moment you open one and sink into it you can escape from the world, into a story that's way more interesting that yours will ever be.”

“I’m always the one who doesn’t have a date, the one guys walk up to and say, “So, is your friend, you know, with someone?” and I may not be the only girl without someone, but it feels like it sometimes. A lot of the time.”