“I just want to be floating, suspended here in my California time capsule with neither yesterday's dusk or tomorrow's dawn anywhere on the horizon.”

“The most tragic thing about California is that nothing is permanent or real here," he says. "It gets to you, you know?”

“The whole idea of losing one's virginity is kind of ridiculous. To lose something implies carelessness. A mistake that you can fix simply by recovering the lost object, like your cell phone or your glasses. Virginity is more like shedding something than losing it. As in, "Don't worry, Mom. You can call off the helicopters and police dogs. Turns out - get this - I didn't actually lose my virginity. I just cast it off somewhere between here and Monterey. Can you believe it? It could be anywhere by now, what with all that wind.”

“Hey. What did you do to your - I mean, you look different." My cheeks go immediately hot. Not that your average onlooker can tell, given all the makeup I'm wearing. "Frankie and I were just messing around this morning." "Oh," he says, tying the paper from his straw into little knots. "It looks nice, I mean. I just can't see you, that's all." I make a mental note to ditch the makeup tomorrow. Then I get mad at myself for letting some boy that I just met dictate what I do with my own face. Then I get mad at myself for getting mad at myself and remember that I, too, prefer the natural look.”

“...but I want to spend the whole trip out here, with the ocean replenishing her treasures like an old shopkeeper as I sleep alongside her in the sand. ”

“Not everyone who comes to Luna's on gig nights is here to see me. Some people are actually more interested in the coffee. Or the scones. Or in hitting on Emily.""Oh, I didn't say I wasn’t' here to hit on Em," I say. "Just that hitting on Em and enjoying your music aren't mutually exclusive.”

“Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to make it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I‘ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting.”