Look at me. We aren´t them lauren. You´re not your mother or father any more than I´m my mother. You´re you and I´m me and I love you.

There are a million rules for being a girl. There are a million things you have to do to get through each day. High school has things that can trip you up, ruin you, people say one thing and mean another, and you have to know all the rules, you have to know what you can and can't do.

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.

I want to care, but I don’t. I look at you and all I feel is tired.

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

Look at me. We aren´t them lauren. You´re not your mother or father any more than I´m my mother. You´re you and I´m me and I love you.

I'd forgotten how much feelings hurt.