“I hope the people I hurt can see past the prank to the very real respect and affection I feel for them. If not, I may have to take my own advice, buy myself some cute shoes and march on. I hope that's not how it ends, though. I hope this boy-meets-girl-pretending-to-be-boy story has a happy ending, one with less bitter and more sweet.”

“If he’s just not into you anymore, then buy yourself a cute pair of shoes and strut your fabulousness elsewhere.”

“Are you mad?" I ask."I was." He glances at the ceiling then back at me. "Or confused, anyway. The whole thing threw me through for a loop. I thought I'd finally met a guy at Underwood I could relate to, and it turns out he wasn't a guy at all."I swallow. "I can see how that would be weird." "In a way though, I was relieved.""Relieved?" I echo. "Why?"He looks around embarrased. "Let's just say you had me questioning my sexual orientation.”

“I sometimes suspect they don't take Dr. Aphrodite very seriously. Which is sad, really. Because what's more serious than love?”

“I despise the rituals of fake friendship. I wish we could just claw each other's eyes out and call it a day; instead we put on huge radiant smiles and spout compliments until our teeth hurt from the saccharine sweetness of it all.”

“I think that everyone should have at least a part of them that's self-invented; in fact, the world would be much more interesting if we all created our own identities afresh whenever we felt like it. Otherwise you're just walking around regurgitating what's expected, which is like, why bother?”

“Sure, okay, I'll pick up some cat litter. Anything else?""Watch your back, G." Then she hung up.Hero paused in her sobbing to look at me quizzically. "Why does your mom want cat litter? You guys don't even have a cat.""She uses it for..." I searched my brain madly, but all I could come up with was "teaching.""She uses cat litter to teach English?"I nodded. "She's kind of unconventional in her methods."Hero frowned. "But how does she use it?"The girl was relentless when she fixated on something. "Um, when their papers are really bad, she gives them a little bag of cat litter. It's her way of telling them their writing is crap." I laughed. "She's kooky.”