You only get to walk variations of the same lines everyone has already drawn for you.

Good.”He puts the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger.

I half-expect to check out, but I’m really there for it. It’s not like at the dance, angry and forced. It’s terrible in its gentleness and he’s just wasting it on me.

I wish I could break this window. Step through it. But I can’t break this window. I can’t even find some less dramatic way to die inside of this school, like hanging myself or slitting...

You know,” she says. “You’re still alive. I don’t know how many different ways I can try to tell you before it finally sinks in.

I will see my father in every anger.

There is nothing like discovering your own secrets in someone else’s story. Those thoughts and feelings you believed were too ugly or strange or idealistic or desperate or whimsical or hungry or sad they had...

The sooner you make a mistake and learn to live with it, the better. You’re not responsible for everything. You can’t control the way things end up.

There’s always this one girl. She’s desperate and she’s weird and she’s jealous, and you’re stuck with her, no matter how hard you try to get her off your back. Just throw some really fucked-up...

Mom and Dad exchange a nervous glance and have a telepathic conversation about it. I hear every word. Do we let her out? It’s past curfew. True, but look at that—at least she asked! I...

I am so sad. I am so sad it makes me heavier than the sum of my parts. I shift, restless, but it doesn’t help. It’s like—time. All this time in here is on me,...

I elbow my way through the mass of people to get to my locker because there’s something immensely satisfying about the toughest part of my arm connecting with the softest part of everyone else.

If I can do things right, I don’t see why everyone else can’t.

I hate that I’m so numb and empty and disconnected from most of these people but even I can see worth in stupid little moments like these. These people aren’t even my family, but I...

It’s okay, we can go back from this.” It comes out of his mouth so kind – he means it – and it just makes me feel worse. That he can kiss me like this...

I mean, you know how it is. You chase a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and life’s never the same, no matter how many times you try to tell people...

My hands are dying.

Her eyes widen and she shoves me back and then there’s a space between us, enough to paralyze me with all of the things I could do to her next. I could raise my hand...

I move closer to the glass, as close as I can get to it, begging her, begging Lily, begging Grace, begging all of them to tell me what’s left, to just tell me, while the...

I hope I’m the ghost that belongs to her.

I think you’re crazy good at this survival stuff, Cary.”His shoulders sag. He gives me a small, relieved smile and we start walking again, his step a little lighter than it was before. It feels...

You know all the ways you can kill a girl?God, there are so many.

Whatever’s between us is that kind of new.

She was young and alive, untouchable. Why did she want to go?

…a deadline should not prevent you from writing, but writing will help prevent you from missing your deadline. Then write a word. Then remind yourself of that again. And then write another and hey, look...

I thought it could be something, I mean, eventually.” Harrison finally looks at us. “My life I thought-but I mean… it’s nothing.””Don’t cry” Grace says. “You have a lot of time.””No, I don’t.””Yeah, you do.””No.-“”Yeah!...

Imagine 4 years.Four years, two suicides, one death, one rape, two pregnancies (one abortion), three overdoses, countless drunken antics, pantsings, spilled food, theft, fights, broken limbs, turf wars–every day, a turf war–six months until graduation...

He was planning to rape me -“”Why would he ever -“”Because he knew he’d get away with it.

Behind the building was a field and when the potpourri scent of her cleaner made me sneeze, I went outside. There were calves there, these sweet things that watched me with less interest than I...