Kate, don't be like that. You know I only did so well because I yearn-see, SAT word- to follow you to college and steal your heart." "Uh-huh. Too bad for you I don't plan on attending clown college." He grinned. "Only you would ignore the incredibly sweet thing I just said." "Only you would describe one of your asinine comments as incredibly sweet.

..."Are you okay?" he says, still looking at me, and I feel my smile slip, fade, and the silence that falls over us then is so total I can’t hear anything, not the rush-hiss of my heart pounding in my chest, not the sounds all around us; insects, wind, and the distant clatter of others’ lives in houses built close but not too close because when we look out our windows we all like to pretend that everything we see is ours. But Ryan is not mine.

Wherever I go, I'll always see you. You'll always be with me. And there's no happy ending coming here, no way a story that started on a night that's burned into my heart will end the way I wish it could. You're really gone, no last words, and no matter how many letters I write to you, you're never going to reply. You're never going to say good-bye. So I will. Good-bye, Julia. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being you.

Hope was supposed to be a good thing, but it was starting to feel like every other four-letter word you're not supposed to say.

How come you like Josh so much anyway? All he does is sit around drinking overpriced coffee and bitching about how awful things are" "He cares about the world." "If he cared about the world, he'd donate the ten thousand dollars he must spend on coffee every year to charity. That would be doing something.

He's looking at me as if the whole world waits for my next breath, with an intensity that makes my heart pound and my palms sweat and then he smiles, a sweet curve of his mouth, and my breath catches, but then I freeze because there is something about it, something beyond it that I know, that makes my mind go blank with fear and pain.

I heard how people sounded when their dreams were shattered, when their lives were turned into a waking nightmare.