“She thoroughly felt the pitch and roll of the ship as it traveled southerly across the ocean. It was a pleasant feeling, an ancient one that every person who had ever loved the sea had felt and cherished--to be rocked to sleep, as if in a mother's arms or in a cradle.”

“When everything was laid out before her, she felt safe, loved even. She was always trying to be more organized than she was. She knew it was weird and blamed her mother, with the lists andnotes she’d leave whenever she and Dad went out of town. The labeled dinners in the freezer and the 20 emergency numbers on the phone showed she cared, even when absent, she cared.”

“The morning was on fire as the sun rose, seemingly from the ocean depths. The great, glowing orb came to the surface and set the horizon aflame. Many minutes passed, and it floated fully into the sky to light the day and gently warm the sea below.”

“She felt just like that girl in that book with the letter A on her chest. Only her A signified Alone. She was an outcast, cast out by her own choices, an outsider with a pretty face. Like a rose, she may have been beautiful to look at, but almost everyone only knew the thorny side.”

“Teachers knew every one of the students, their secrets, their grades, their home situations. And all the students knew the teachers. It was like teachers were people who finally were the most popular at school.”

“In her experience, there were only two kinds of guys: the ones into sports and the ones into video gaming. It seemed guys had to be obsessed with something, whether it was watching a game or playing in it or keeping some weird collection related to it.”

“The air was warm and heavy as sprinkles began to fall from the clouds high above. The Triton glided through the waters and the whoosh of the ship combined with the steady beat of the rain to make a concerto, like a pianist fluttering his fingers on the keys at one end and running his fingers up and down the scales at the other. Expectancy hung in the air as the tune moved to a crescendo.”