“Are you coming down with something?" Mom asks.And just for the tiniest of seconds, I wonder what would happen if I told them the truth. That school is nothing like I imagined it would be. That I'm not the girl in the catalog at all. I'm not a Happy College Student. I don't know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don't want to be her anymore.”

“I don't know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don't want to be her anymore.”

“I don't know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don't want to be her anymore.”

“This is myself, baby. All of my selves. I own each and every one of them. I know who I'm pretending to be and who I am." The look he gives me is withering. "Do you?”

“So, this is how it's become? This is how I've become? A walking contradiction? I'm surrounded by people and feel alone. I claim to crave a bit of normalcy but now that I have some, it's like I don't know what to do with it, I don't know how to be a normal person anymore.”

“Adam is crying and somewhere inside of me I am crying, too, because I'm feeling things at last. I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it is profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill.”

“Little pinpricks fire-cracker up and down my body. Just calm down, I tell myself. You just make her nervous showing up all out of the blue like that. Still, I'm flattered that I matter-- even if it's just enough to scare her.”