The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled...

You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.

When the bell rings, and lunch is over, I decide to come back here tomorrow, and the next day. I tell myself it really isn’t that bad.

This is what I want so don’t be sad.

my life is just waiting for you to get started.

It was the moment I realized what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once.

We felt so small with the city lights stretching forever below us, and we yelled at the top of our lungs because we were just these small humans but we felt more longing than could...

No,” I say. “I didn’t know that,” and as I say it I feel flooded with bitterness at all the things Ingrid kept secret from me.

Dignity is overrated. You know what trumps dignity? Kissing.

dear today, i spend all of you pretending i’m okay when i’m not, pretending i’m happy when i’m not, pretending about everything to everyone.

We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly...

I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things...

My room is so quiet and empty it hurts.

He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He uses his hands. He loves me that much.

We love films because they make us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into eyes that are impossibly beautiful...

That’s what friends do: they notice things. They’re there for each other. They see what parents don’t.

I sleep through the next day. Each time I go to the bathroom, I try not to look in the mirror. Once, I catch my reflection: it looks like I’ve been punched in both eyes.I...

I’ll make a swing so I can reach the places I can’t reach yet.

Ingrid’s skin was the smoothest texture, so pale that it was transparent. I could see the blue veins that ran down her arms, and they made her seem fragile somehow. the way Eric Daniels, my...

I know,” I say. “It sucks. Let’s go get tacos and sit on the beach.

This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes.

There are still Ava Maddoxes to find and sets to create and girls to kiss and colleges to attend. It’s possible that someday I will hear a patsy Cline song and the heartbreak will barely...

It isn’t the happy ending that Ingrid and I have dreamed up, but it’s all a part of what I’m working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly,...

I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that’s the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty.

There are so many things that I want so badly to tell you but I just can’t.

I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets into wishes, went around shouting them.

I leaned over the sink, closer to my reflection, and stare at myself hard. I don’t know what I see. I don’t even know what I want to see.

He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, ‘O, teach me how I should forget to think!’ I, for the first time, see what the big deal is about...

And I want to tell you about everything but I can’t because I couldn’t stand for you to have that look on your face all the time. I just need you to look at me...

It isn’t the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it’s all a part of what I’m working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and...

Don’t you want to kiss me?’ she asks.She smiles just a little, a hopeful, sweet smile, but buried in it is that confidence that slays me.

People take one another for granted

Each time a breeze starts, I feel the air all the way through me.

There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We’d be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think...

…I think that people who make judgements about other people they don’t even know are shallow, and people who start rumors are shallow, and I really don’t care what shallow people say about me.

The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can’t get away from it. Not...

My best friend is dead, and I could have saved her. It’s so wrong so completely and painfully wrong, that I walked through my front door tonight smiling.

I was so blinded by her talent that I didn’t recognize the tremendous pain behind her work. She gave me hundreds of images, so many chances to see that she was in trouble. I failed...

It’s the opposite of the collapse of the fantasy.It’s what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth. I’m seeing her for the first time. Not Ava Garden Wilder, the rags-to-riches granddaughter of...

Whenever Ingrid and I got out of the suburbs, into Berkeley or San Francisco, and saw how other people lived, Ingrid would cry at the smallest of things- a little boy walking home by himself,...

I don’t want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.

I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had...

How it’s so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she’s made me. She got to disappear completely and...