“Don’t say ‘sorry.’ Just cut it out.”

“My favorite uncle was gay,” she says, “and he doesn’t like to dance, either.” She looks at Chad. “I don’t like that word. Fag. Don’t use it, okay?”

“It’s like they don’t even know how to stand beside each other without one groping the other. Their clinginess has always annoyed me.”

“Just like every other year, there's a kind of death in the air as the summer is squelched by autumn. It is a lonely feeling.”

“I remember my brother as such a gentle and loving child, the best big brother a girl could hope for, but I remember when I started to sense our family's world tilting on its axis, the kaleidoscope turning, when things started to go wrong. From then on, it was like we were still ourselves, but our lives played out as though reflected back to us from a funhouse mirror.”

“He can't hear you." Alex sighs. "You aren't the sharpest sheep in the barn, are you?""That's not even the right metaphor," I snap, my attention still focused on Richie. "It's the sharpest pencil in the box.""Right." Alex nods. "Except you are a sheep. I'm not stupid, I just adjusted the metaphor to fit your persona-""Oh, shut up. Richie!" I scream again. Alex shakes his head.”

“I realise now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go so far away that I'd never be able to make my way home again. But I have no idea why.”