“I can’t swim, because despite my love being shaped like Michael Phelps, it’s so heavy it’s like an anti flotation device. If I can barely even carry it, I can understand how it’s a burden to you and why you don’t want to keep it in your heart.”

“A brick could be used as a flotation device, if you’re Michael Phelps and don’t need it.
”

“This pen is my only outlet, my only voice, because I have no one else to speak to, no mind but my own to drown in and all the lifeboats are taken and all the life preservers are broken and I don’t know how to swim I can’t swim I can’t swim and it’s getting so hard. It’s getting so hard. It’s like there are a million screams caught inside of my chest but I have to keep them all in because what’s the point of screaming if you’ll never be heard and no one will ever hear me in here. No one will ever hear me again.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, Jess,” he said as a sob shuddered through him. “Because I am a damned fool. Fuck! Ihave everything I want right in front of me, I love you so damned much I can’t think straight, and then it’s like…I don’tknow, like I’m so afraid of losing you, that I keep pushing you away so maybe I’ll stop caring as much and then it won’t hurt as bad if I do lose you. It’s so fucking twisted even I don’t understand it.”

“I can draw like it’s nobody’s business. I use my door as a canvas, so don’t knock, because it’s nobody’s business.”

“Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.”