“It was scary how much she sounded like me sometimes. Maybe that's why she totally got on my nerves”

“I—I adore you, too. Well, I don't know if I adore you. That's not really the word I'd use. But I—I—" I managed to wrench it out. God, this was hard! "I love you.""Of course you do," he said, totally unsurprised."WHAT? I finally tell you my deepest, most personal feelings and you're all, 'Yeah, I already got that memo'? This, this is why you drive me nuts! This is why it's so hard to tell you things! I take it back.”

“Look, nobody's trying to kill me right now and that's just fine. If they don'tlike me, that's just how it goes. I got over needing people to LIKE me in tenthgrade, when I spied the captain of the cheerleading squad on her knees infront of the offensive line of the football team under the bleachers, one day after school. I figured that wasn't the life for me.”

“You know, they did let you have that room,” I said. “In fact, I think they’re assuming you’ll use it, as opposed to lingering in strange hallways.”She responded to me with, “Girl, I am bored outta my tits.”“Can we have one cross-country quest without talking about your tits?”Her pretty dark eyes went narrow and thoughtful, and she caressed her cheek with a long fingernail colored jack-o’-lantern orange. After a thoughtful pause, she shook her head. “I don’tsee how.”“I figured.”

“Why is it suddenly uncool to spell? That's all I want to know.”

“Why don't you mind your own fucking business?" I snapped. "If I want to take my sister to my place of business, that's my own damned business and not any of your business." Was I overusing the word business? Fuck it. "So mind your own business.”

“You'll pay," she said stonily. "You won't be like this by this time tomorrow." "Bored and pissed off? God, I hope not.”