“Sometimes I feel like she deserves a best friend who is just a little more special.”

“It's the time of the night I like best, when most people are asleep and it feels like the world belongs completely to my friends and me, as though nothing exists apart from out little circle: everywhere else is darkness and quiet.”

“She is the only one who knowsof the Coldness: a feeling that comes sometimes when I’mlying in bed, a black, empty feeling that knocks my breathaway and leaves me gasping as though I’ve just beenthrown in icy water. On nights like that—although it is wrongand illegal—I think of those strange and terrible words, Ilove you, and wonder what they would taste like in mymouth, try to recall their lilting rhythm on my mother’stongue.”

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.”

“Sometimes I feel as though there are two me's, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she's supposed to nod and says what she's supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams... Most of the time they move along in sync and I hardly notice the split, but sometimes it feels as though I'm two whole different people and I could rip apart at any second.”

“She deserved an angel, and I wanted to be hers.”

“Maybe Lindsay and I are best friends and we hate each other, both. Maybe I’m only one math class away from being a slut like Anna Cartullo. Maybe I am like her, deep down. Maybe we all are: just one lunch period away from eating alone in the bathroom. I wonder if it’s ever really possible to know the truth about someone else, or if the best we can do is just stumble into each other, heads down, hoping to avoid collision.”