I’m still dropping dishes thinking in slow motion about the GPS woman in Mom’s car. I imagine her beckoning me from outside the kitchen window illuminated like some robot-angel calling me forth to the Lexus...

The only thing that’s ours to accept is the fact that we don’t always get to know the answers.

Mom asked for a cupcake miracle? Well, here comes the freaking holy angel of icing, at your service. –HudsonAngel icing? That’s the craziest, corniest, most whack-ass stuff I’ve heard in my life

I accept the hard reality that I maybe might possibly be just the slightest tiniest littlest bit kinda sorta interested in him.

Frankie Perino and I were lucky that day. Lucky to be alive-that’s what everyone said.

But once in a while, you pick the right thing, the exact best thing. Every day, the moment you open your eyes and pull off your blankets, that’s what you hope for. The sunshine on...

Because maybe Watonka was only ever supposed to be a temporary stopover, and maybe I will chase that train over the hill, and maybe we’re all destined to leave this place, for sure, for real,...

It was just over a year ago. Twelve months, nine days and six hours ago, actually. But thirteen months ago everything was…perfect.

It’s rally bad when dads cry.

I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn’t exist anymore. That the person I missed didn’t exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And...

Why, why, why. But you don’t ask me stuff that matters. Who I am or where I been. What I see when I look at you. What I want.

Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it’s over, you feel like you don’t have any bones left to hold you up.

Would ‘sorry’ have made any difference? Does it ever? It’s just a word. One word against a thousand actions.

But then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn’t exist anymore. That the person I missed didn’t exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can...

They say you can never step into the same river twice. And maybe that’s how it was for Papi now, memories shifting and re-forming soundlessly beneath him while the rest of us sat on the...

I really don’t even know you, and yet, in my life, you are forever entangled; to my history, inextricably bound.

Hey. What did you do to your – I mean, you look different.” My cheeks go immediately hot. Not that your average onlooker can tell, given all the makeup I’m wearing. “Frankie and I were...

Family tragedies had a way of smashing everything apart and then gluing it all back together. The problem was no one ever knew how long the glue would hold.

They tear each other apart. Sometimes there aren’t any happy endings or logical explanations and we just have to accept that and move on. Sometimes it really is that simple.

Every morning, I wake up and forget just for a second that it happened. But once my eyes open, it buries me like a landslide of sharp, sad rocks. Once my eyes open, I’m heavy,...

I closed my eyes under the fluroescent lights and tried to make another birthday wish, a onetime do-over, a rebate, a trade-in on the kitchen sink kiss that started everything, offered up for just one...

There was no going back to the way things were, because all you ever got was the way things are.

Through pictures, we cut reality in pieces. We selected only the choicest moments, discarding the rest as if they’d never happened.

Nothing ever really goes away–it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.

Have some carrots. They’re good for your eyes.””Then you have some fries. They’re good for your… I don’t know. They’re just good.

I’m not sure if you even want me around or if you just feel sorry for me. I’m not sure of anything.

My sisters were wrong to name the Vargas boys in the oath. Names had nothing to do with it. All boys were destined to break your heart.

Anna,” he said, dragging his frosted fingers through my hair.”Don’t you know what it means when a boy pulls your hair at your birthday party?” “No.” Just, then, i didn’t know what anything meant.

I’ve never met a problem a proper cupcake couldn’t fix.

I can’t stop thinking about what he felt like against my body, against my lips. I can’t remember anything else, anything before that. And I realize in this moment that I’ve finally done it. That...

The late-night backyard encounter and kiss induced insomnia.

This boy wore the ocean in his eyes, green-gray-blue, ever shifting, and I recognized him immediately. Knew before he said another word that he was as dangerous as he was beautiful.

The guilt of not telling Frankie about Matt and me is overwhelming, but it’s a pale second to the violation I feel that she read my most private, raw thoughts and destroyed them. She broke...

It takes a strong woman to lose everything, then stand naked in front of the mirror and face herself again. You need time, honey. And I don’t mean time for it to go away. I...

Sometimes I think I’m an alien that accidentally fell off the mother ship, destined to wander among clueless earthling parents for all eternity.

In your entire life, you can probably count your true friends on one hand. Maybe even on one finger. Those are the friends you need to cherish, and I wouldn’t trade one of them for...

Everyone says that the internet is so awesome because you can connect with people from all over the world, but I think it’s the opposite. The internet doesn’t make it easier to connect with anyone—it...

But I knew he wouldn’t kiss me. Not tonight. Not like this. There was too much between us now, all the words and near misses. All the potential, the alternate futures that would stretch out...

For all its ridiculous imperfections, life is pretty damn perfect sometimes.

See, some people politely encourage their tone-deaf friends to sing. Some people even convince them to go on live television and audition for national competitions. But me? I am not that friend.

He turned the entire living room into an airport, complete with a four-foot-high LEGO traffic control tower and a fleet of paper planes, plastic army pilots taped safely into their cockpits. From deep beneath the...