“Do you miss being friends with Santangelo?" I ask her after the lights are out and we're almost asleep."What makes you think were friends?""Everything."I hear her yawn."Being enemies with him is better." she tells me. There's a long pause and I think she's going to say something more but she doesn't and it's just silence for a long while.”

“What happens when she's not my memory anymore? What happens when she's not around to tell me about his belt leaving scars across my two-year-old brother's face or when he whacked her so hard that she lost her hearing for a week? Who'll be my memory?"Santangelo doesn't miss a beat. "I will. Ring me.""Same," Raffy says.I look at him. I can't even speak because if I do I know I'll cry but I smile and he knows what I'm thinking.”

“I watch Raffy as she removes the pickles from her hamburger and hands them over to Santangelo without them exchanging a word and I realize again there is more to that relationship than spelling bees and being enemies. These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I'm thinking.”

“Just say she never gets to hear me say that I always knew she was something special and that's why I was so horrible to her. Because people with that much spirit frighten the hell out of me. They make me want to be a better person when I know it's not possible.”

“How would you like it if I said to you, 'It kills me to say this, but you're actually a tiny bit beautiful?" he had asked, pissed off. She hadn't said anything then, which was rare for her. "Would you have been lying?" She said after a long silence. "Lying about what?" More quiet. "About me being a tiny bit beautiful.""Shit, yeah."-But later that night, he had sent her a message on MSN. Of course I was lying. The "tiny" bit part, anyway.”

“What did she say to you?""Nothing.""Oh, great. I have to try to get you out of this mess after you hit a girl for nothing," he whispered angrily. "Josephine, don't waste my time. You don't seem like a violent type. She had to have said something to rile you."I just don't like her. She's vain. She puts her hair all over my books when she sits in front of me in class.""So you hit her?""No ... yes.""A girl puts her hair all over your books, so you break her nose?""Well, I don't think it's broken, personally.""Doctor Kildare, we are not here to give a medical opinion. I want to know what she said to you.""God," I yelled exasperated. "She said something to upset me, okay?""What? That you were ugly? That you smell? What?"I looked horrified."I'm not ugly. I don't smell."He sighed and took off his glasses, sitting down in front of me and pulling my chair towards him. "I was just asking for a reason.""Never mind," I said."That creep out there wants -you to pay for his daughter's nose-job. Because of that nose-job she will be a famous model one day and you'll be working in a fast-food chain because you couldn't finish your Higher School Certificate due to expulsion. Now tell me what she said.""There's nothing wrong with a fast-food chain," I said, thinking of my McDonald's job."I'm really getting pissed off now, Josephine. You called me out of work for this and you won't tell me why.""Just go," I said, as he stood up and paced the room."I'll defend myself in court."He groaned and looked up to the ceiling pulling his hair. "God save me from days like this," he begged."Go," I yelled."Okay. Let him win. He's a creep. Creeps always win," he said walking to the door. "But don't think you're going to make it in a court room, young lady. If you can't be honest, don't expect to stand up in a court room and defend honesty.""She called me a wog, amongst other things," I said, finally. "I haven't been called one for so long. It offended me. It made me feel pathetic.""Did you provoke her?""Yes. I called her a racist pig due to some things she was saying.""Is she one?""God, yes. The biggest.”

“You seem to have a problem with me," he says in typical Griggs fashion.I can tell he regrets saying it when he is treated to one of Hannah's long cold gazes."I think it will be a while before I forgive the trip to Sydney," she says flatly."Fair enough. I think it will be a while before I forgive you for what you put her through over the past six weeks."I watch them both and for the first time it occurs to me that I'm no longer flying solo and that I have no intention of pretending that I am. I have an aunt and I have a Griggs and this is what it's like to have connections with people."Do you know what?" I ask both of them. "If you don't build a bridge and get over it, I'll never forgive either of you.”