“My mother refused to let me fail. So I insisted.”

“Think your mother will let me drive you to school tomorrow? Now that we're all friends and united by a belief in the careful use of contraception?"My cheeks burn, the memory of my mother's mortifying behavior distracting me for a moment. "Yes," I mumble. "I think so.”

“I refuse to let the past find me here.”

“When my nose finally stops bleeding and I've disposed of the bloody paper towels, Teddy Barnes insists on driving me home in his ancient Honda Civic, a car that refuses to die and that Teddy, cheap as he is, refuses to trade in.”

“I refused to change the way I practiced my faith or to let fear stop me from carrying out what I believed in.”

“My mother refuses to go into the ocean. She respects it, she says, which is basically the same as saying she's afraid. I go in because it scares me...”