“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.”

“working to my potential.' It's like every teacher I have has some sort of manual to use when talking to me. She finished with, 'You have so much going for you,' which was the dumbest thing anyone, even Laurie, has ever said to me.”

“I love the me I am with him. I’m the girl who has Dave. I’m Lauren, Dave’s girlfriend. I’m someone better than Lauren Smith, who no one noticed till Dave came along. The thing is, that girl isn’t me and I know it. But when I’m with him, I feel like I could be her. That if something in me was just–I don’t know, shifted a little or something, smoothed down–people would think of me the way they think of Dave, and everything would always be perfect. I would be perfect.”

“I don't know how I know that, but I do. I can feel the beat of that truth inside me. Taste it bitter on my tongue.Sometimes, like now, I didn't think I want to know who I really am.”

“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.”

“And now I see what has been there all along, what I've noticed but never truly understood until now. Eli is as uncertain as I am, as we all are. Life has surprised him like it has me. Has hurt him like it has me.”

“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.”