“If you give boys what they want, they give you what you need. Right?”

“I want Toy to know that I know. That no matter how many boys tell her they love her, how many boys tell her she's beautiful, how many boys crawl into her window at night and make love to her, it doesn't help. That I know it doesn't help. She is my sister and I love her. Like I want her to love me.”

“She's never been touched by a boy who knows what love looks like.I picture Sam's parents, his mom resting her hand in the center of his dad's back and the way his dad leans back against her.”

“I want to go back to the tell-me-again times when I slept in her bed and we were everything together. When I was everything to her. Everything she needed.”

“It doesn't matter what story we're telling, we're telling the story of family.”

“Sam's house is everything I wanted, but didn't know to want...I want to wrap myself in this house like a blanket.”

“And then he hugs me. Really hugs me. Like he thinks that there's only one of me and I'm special and I'm enough for him. Like he doesn't need anything else. Like he was alone and then I came along.”