“I don’t tell him about how I have to leave my family organism, break out firmly and finally. I don’t tell him that I’m a parasite, and I’m ruining them. That my functionality is tearing them to pieces.”

“Dad laughs. “You want to take a break? Go play with them?”The problem is I’m sixteen, almost seventeen, and I don’t want to play with them as much as I want to want to play with them. Maybe this feeling is what Noah’s been running from.”

“I’m bored of this. I want to hear about you. Favorite color. Go.”I laugh. “Green.”“I’m green!”“Fuck yeah you are.”“Why are you laughing? Isn’t this what friends do?”“Interrogate each other?”“What? Uh, sure. I don’t know what that means. But yes.”

“There's so much about girls I don't understand. I don't know how I'm old enough to kiss them but not old enough to talk to them.”

“How’s everything going, Jonah?” This question is enough to piss me off. I hate counselors ... I have Naomi. I don’t need this crap.”

“If this were a fairy tale, this would be the part where the fishboy appears and Diana shoots him through the heart. Because he is a tragic hero, he's our fucking Gatsby, and he lived for his fish and he has to die for his fish. He would never let my fake authority, condoning his abandonment, making up rules about what's okay just to save his life, convince him to give up his family. He would never leave.He would know that without him, none of us will be as good. Me, without a friend; and the fish, without a brother; and the island, without a story; and Diana, without her something real, we will all be a little bit less than we were before we knew him.So he wouldn't leave. Not until I could come with him. And I have never been less able to leave than I am now.But this isn't a fairy tale, and he doesn't appear. We stand here for a long time.He really left.Because it was all that we could do.”

“If silence could break bones, I would shatter right now, into pieces of stomachache and blueprints and desperation.”