“Be honest: Are you surprised that I didn't realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long to even /think/ the word -- death? Dying? Dead?Do you think I was being stupid? Naive?Try not to judge. Remember that we're the same, you and me.I thought I would live forever too.”

“I want to help you,' I say to Juliet, though I know that I can't make her understand, not like this.'Don't you get it?' She turns to me, and to my surprise I see she's crying. 'I can't be fixed, do you understand?'I think of standing on the stairs with Kent and saying exactly the same thing. I think of his beautiful light green eyes, and the way he said, You don't need to be fixed and the warmth of his hands and the softness of his lips. I think of Juliet's mask and how maybe we all feel patched and stitched together and not quite right.I am not afraid. Dimly, I have the sense of roaring in my ears and voices so close and faces, white and frightened, emerging from the darkness, but I can't stop staring at Juliet as she's crying, still so beautiful.'It's too late,' she says.And I say, 'It's never too late.”

“you have to understand. i wasn't just thinking of me. i was thinking of her, too.”

“That's when it happens. The moment of death is full of heat and sound and pain bigger than anything, a funnel of burning heat splitting me in two, something searing and scorching and tearing, and if screaming were a feeling it would be this.Then nothing. I know some of you are thinking maybe I deserved it. Maybe I shouldn't have sent that rose to Juliet or dumped my drink on her at the party. Maybe I shouldn't have copied off of Lauren Lornet's quiz. Maybe I shouldn't have said those things to Kent. There are probably some of you who think I deserved it because I was going to let Rob go all the way--because I wasn't going to save myself.But before you start pointing fingers, is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like THAT?Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does?Is it really so much worse than what YOU do?Think about it.”

“Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?""I don't know any other way.""Let me show you."And then we're kissing. Or at least, I think we're kissing—I've only seen it done a couple of times, quick closed-mouth pecks at weddings or on formal occasions. But this isn't like anything I've ever seen, or imagined, or even dreamed: this is like music or dancing but better than both.”

“You see, I was looking for answers then. I still wanted to know why. As though somebody was going to answer that for me, as though any answer would be satisfying.Not then, but afterward, I started to think about time, and how it keeps moving and draining and flowing forever forward, seconds into minutes into days into years, all of it leading to the same place, a current running forever in one direction. And we're all going and swimming as fast as we can, helping it along.My point is: maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around in it, let it slide like coins through your fingers. So much time you can waste it.But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.”

“Raven jerks and stiffens. For a second, I think she is only surprised: Her mouth goes round, her eyeswide.Then she begins teetering backward, and I know that she is dead. Falling, falling, falling . . .”