And yet here I am. Broken and bleeding on the inside, heartsick, I am here.

My full name is Lauren Lee Smith. Of all the names I could have been given, that's the one I got. Lauren Lee Smith. It has all the personality of a toaster.

I suppose he's making a real fashion statement, but this is high school. You're not supposed to be real. You're supposed to be enough like everyone else to get through and out into the waiting world.

...sometimes, you have to break your own heart.

Talking about someone who makes you happy actually makes you happy.

I’m broken, I have cut myself wide open. I can see my heart and it is not what I believed it was, it is not good and kind and all the things I have always thought I am.

Something in me, in my bruised heart, wakes up, and even though I'm terrified, I don't push the feeling away.