“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.”

“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. ”

“Do you really think he was flirting with me?""Let's see. He gave you candy you hate - I saw your face - and a CD of songs..." He looks at the CD. "All of these are, like, twenty years old at least. Figures. Oh, and he groped your face. Sounds like true love to me.”

“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 want to care, but I don't. I look at you and all I feel is tired. I walk through school and all I want to do is leave. I wake up in the morning and don't know why I'm here. I feel like I'm not real.”

“Maybe you and I have to learn how to livewith what we saw. With what we know.”

“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.”