“I was hiding my heart and you were hiding yours too and we played hide and seek together and both of us lost.”

“...because there will never be any boy's wrist to tie the balloon of your helium heart to (it has floated high far away from the heavy stone of that unnameable boy in chicago), you would never be with someone and then someone else, and you would definitely never be someone to someone else's else.”

“writing, you are a girl on a trapeze, swinging high in the air. you know there is no one on the other side to catch you. but your costume is spangly and all eyes are on you and at some point you'll leap--at some point you'll flip. and there may be no net--though it may also be intact, you can't see--but at this point the jumping is everything--it's all that you've got. and as you write you understand this, you understand you won't hit send, but for now you are swinging, swinging, swinging wildly in the air. your eyes are open, your arms are outstretched.”

“I wasn't aware that was how I felt, either, until it was out. And now that I've said it like that, I'm not exactly sure it is how I feel. But this isn't a piece of paper I can crumple up and throw away. they aren't words I can cross out to start over. Now they're out, and I know they'll hang here, between us, maybe forever.”

“no one wants to be a girl who’s picked out her own embroidered heart, string by string, and left it for the birds to tangle in their nests.”

“I know—better than anyone—that once someone’s made up her mind to leave you, there’s nothing you can do to make her stay.”

“That’s your problem, Char. You’re friends with all these boys . . .”