“He had this domineering way about him that totally ketchuped my tater tots—it was like he knew what I wanted more than I did.”

“Yet I felt he was innocent in a way I was not, that I knew more about evil than he ever could, because he had parents who loved him and wanted the best for him, while I had grown up with Mummy.”

“I met a man with no forehead and receding eyebrows. He had ketchup crusted on his eyelids. I can't remember what we talked about, I just remember him smelling like chicken feed.”

“By now, you know everything about Jackson Clarke, probably way more than anyone on earth wants to hear. This is all I have to add: I still think about him every day. When I see him, my heart jumps up in my chest. I long for him to talk to me, and whenever he even says hello, I feel a thousand times worse than I did before. I wish he was dead. I wish he still liked me.”

“I just want to get on a table, dance on someone's tater tots, and wait for the hall monitor to drag me away”

“He wondered if this, more than guilt, was what had been holding him back. It wasn't that he was punishing himself as much as it was that he didn't really want anything anymore. But was that true? Did he really not want anything? What did he want to do? What did he want, period?”