..."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.

It was like we were all so busy trying to be happy or saying we were happy, but underneath there was nothing but bitterness, the kind that could only be bled out in ink, in unspoken word.

Anger can try to break your heart, but sorrow is what will. What can. What does.

I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t think he’d ever really notice me, and in the end, he didn’t.

Okay, I guess you can come in." "Um, Hannah, you have to, you know, open the front door so I can actually come in." "I thought you were going to - you're standing under my window. Aren't you supposed to climb up here or something?" "My ladder's at home. Also, you call throwing rocks at your window clichéd?

I do not fall. I fell so hard so long ago there is nothing left for me to land on. I just keep falling and falling and falling.

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.