“Don’t get sucked in, Dave was always saying to me. Kind of like Helder’s container idea: Notice everything, but don’t buy into it. Hold it.”

“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 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.”

“The details are the life of it, I insist, say everything on your mind, don’t hold back, don’t analyze or anything as you go along, say it out.”

“Don’t get old, Kaylee. It sucks!”

“I see it Kia, and I get this is gonna take effort. But what I’m sensin’ is, you don’t notice I’m makin’ that effort. Don’t fuck up, baby, and, out of habit, reinforce your shields to hold back a threat that doesn’t exist. You get me?”