“...Dads are supposed to be the strong ones. That's probably why Red has so many lines on his forehead. All the hurt goes up there to hide.”

“When someone you love dies, people ask you how you're doing, but they don't really want to know. They seek affirmation that you're okay, that you appreciate their concern, that life goes on and so can they. Secretly they wonder when the statute of limitations on asking expires (its three months, by the way. Written or unwritten, that's about all the time it takes for people to forget the one thing that you never will).”

“Virgin, right?" the voice asks again. It comes from the tall one with white-blond hair falling into his eyes. Frankie is still giggling, and my entire body goes hot and red, despite the chill in the water. If Frankie thinks she's just going to auction me off, well ... I don't know. It's kind of hard to be witty when you're trying to call forth a giant sea squid to swallow you up and drag you down to the depths of the ocean floor, never to be seen, heard from, or mocked again.”

“Why did he leave so fast at the end? Who was on the phone? A girl? That's it, he must have a girlfriend. One from another school. One he was just about to call so he could propose to her, but I interrupted, and then he had to run off to take her call, because weddings don't just plan themselves, you know.”

“And I don’t want to talk about it, because one day his name will brush against my lips in her presence, and through and involuntary blushing of the cheeks, a misting of the eyes, a breath drawn too tightly, or a single tear, the secret I’m supposed to keep locked up forever will be revealed”

“It‘s complicated. I think when bad things happen—whether someone dies or people argue or split up—you get to a point where it‘s just too hard to go back. There‘s so much lost. So many versions of the truth. So many versions of how things might‘ve turned out differently. We all long for what could have been. For some people, it‘s just easier to move forward and try to forget.”

“Where is Frankie, anyway?" Dad asks. "It's almost noon. I'm surprised you two can stand the separation."I take a deep breath and gulp down some orange juice.Well, Dad, first Frankie lied to me about losing her virginity to the foreign exchange student on the soccer field, and how your first time can't be special and all that. Then we decided to have this twenty boy contest but we only met, like, half, and she lied again about sleeping with one of them when really they just kind of fooled around naked and broke up. Meanwhile, when I was casting off my virginity with boy number five (or was he six?), Frankie read my journal and found out that I was in love with Matt for a million years and by the way, right after you took that picture of us with all the cake and frosting, he kissed me and started this whole long thing that we weren't allowed to tell her about. Frankie was so mad that she threw my journal into the bottom of the ocean, where it was banished for all eternity with a lovesick mermaid who cries out pieces of sea glass. Are you going to eat that bacon?..."I'll probably see her later," I say.”