“No powdery residue. But definitely suspicious. Smell." He slides a makeup catalog from beneath a microscope made out of a plate, a toilet paper roll, and an intricate arrangement of pipe cleaners. "Any ideas?" I take a scientific whiff. "Gardenia. Looks like those Mary Kay terrorists are at it again.”

“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.”

“He turned the entire living room into an airport, complete with a four-foot-high LEGO traffic control tower and a fleet of paper planes, plastic army pilots taped safely into their cockpits. From deep beneath the couch, a large utility flashlight illuminates some sort of...landing strip? I crouch down for a better look.Oh. My. God.Stuck to the carpet in parallel, unbroken paths from one wall to the other are two lanes of brand-new maxi pads. Plastic dinosaurs stand guard at every fourth pad–triceratops and T rexes on one side, brontosauruses and pterodactyls on the other–protecting the airport from enemy aircraft and/or heavy flow.”

“No one wants to do it with a chick who smells like bacon." Her brow creases. "Everybody loves bacon.”

“Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up.”

“If I'd known he was going to die, my last words to him would have meant something. They certainly wouldn't have been my out-of-tune attempt at singing that old Grateful Dead song he loved so much. No, I would have told him how I felt about him, straight out. No more flirting, wild-eyed whispers in the grass outside. I would have looked at him harder to ensure his image was permanently seared in my mind. I'd have asked him a million more things so I could remember what mattered before I got in the car on the way home from Custard's. Because after, nothing mattered.”

“According to the crazy, bug-eating guys on those survival shows, human beings are the most adaptable creatures on earth- we can get used to just about anything. Doesn't mean it's okay. I mean, who wants to get used to eating grubs and collecting maple leaves for toiler paper? No thanks.”