You like him because he's a lost boy. Believe me, I've seen it happen before. But do you know what happens to girls who love lost boys? They become lost themselves. Without fail.

That's the question, isn't it?" you said one night. "Does death bring freedom, or is it the end of freedom?

Even though I'm seventeen, I guess I still thought this would always be true - that there would always be that lost-and-found, and not the lost-and-still-lost that I am now trapped inside.

The boy I just kissed is talking to my father. The boy I want to kiss again is waiting for my mother to serve pancakes. I must fight the urge to freak.

Maybe language is kind, giving us these double meanings. Maybe it's trying to teach us a lesson, that we can always be two things at once.

detachment, n. Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it.

I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.