“I tried to go back and talk about what I did know. I told her about one girl he'd brought home from Cornell; I'd asked if she was his girlfriend, and he's said, "When you define something, you limit it.”

“Yeah whatever," Andrew said impatiently. "He came back to the room that night and kept talking about this girl he'd seen at the stargazing. He was shy, and so I told him if he pointed you out, I'd try to finagle a meeting." I swear, Andrew's the only person in the world who could use a word like finagle with a straight face. "But he was talking about me," I said. Andrew shrugged. "When we figured it out, we had a good laugh about it," he said defensively. "But of course you were my girlfriend. So that was that.”

“Have you talked to Lindsay about me?""Not really. But the night of that charity thing, when I was driving her home, she told me I should wait an appropriate amount of time out of respect for Paul Wheeler and then ask you out.""She did?""Yeah. But I told her I was in no rush because I'd already fucked you, so--""WHAT?"He looked across at her and grinned. "Just kidding.”

“I told her I'd rather talk about her, instead of listening to her drone on about the weather. Little did I know she was an aspiring meteorologist.”

“Remember that summer you liked that girl who worked at theboardwalk? Angie?”“No,” he said, but I knew he was lying. “What about her?”“Did you ever hook up with her?”Conrad finally lifted his head up from the couch. “No,” he said.“I don’t believe you.”“I tried, once. But she socked me in the head and said she wasn’t that kind of girl.I think she was a Jehovah’s Witness or something.”

“...when I came back, I found Mom sobbing at the kitchen table...Then I asked her what had happened.'Nothing,'she said. 'I was thinking about that man...I started thinking about...if he and his wife and their other child are okay, and I don't know. It just got to me.''I know,' I said, because I did know. Sometimes it's safer to cry about people you don't know than to think about people you really love.”