“I was really putting a lot of pressure on this beer prop; it was going to distract me enough so that I didn’t run around screaming like a lunatic on fire.”

“Doña Remedios, like her husband, was quite traditional and not trendy enough to understand concepts like natural birth or the importance of a friendly environment for the newborn. Birth might be natural, but she didn’t think it should be a pain for the mother or an inconvenience for the mother’s family. How friendly can it be for a baby to be born to her mother’s screaming her head off and everybody running around like lunatics?”

“I told you I didn’t want to go. Of course, I really did want to go, but I just said I didn’t want to go so you’d beg me to go and I could feel needed. I’m needy like that.”

“I liked this guy a lot. And I thought he liked me a lot, but in truth he didn’t really like me at all. He was my first boyfriend, and I made him my everything-he was my new life, my new love, my new compass point. I guess that’s the danger with flirts-you lose all sense of proportion. So I made a fool of myself, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. I was so devoted to him.”

“Tris," he says. "What did they do to you? You're acting like a lunatic.""That's not very nice of you to say," I say. "They put me in a good mood, that's all. And now I really want to kiss you, so if you could just relax-”

“You're the only one that can put pressure on yourself... No one else can put pressure on you. It's self-inflicted. For me, I just want to go out and play football.”