...the world feels so big when you're out in the wide open. It's like you don't have a place in it when you don't have a home." "Your place is right here," I whispered, laying down and hugging her close.

I like French fries," I say. I like French fries? I sound like a slow child in a made-for-TV movie.

(P)eople’s good intentions can wind up putting us in boxes as confining as coffins.

Forward momentum. That's my new motto. No regrets. And no going back.

Life is a big fat gigantic stinking mess, that's the beauty of it, too.

If I stay. If I live. It’s up to me. All this business about medically induced comas is just doctor talk. It’s not up to the doctors. It’s not up to the absentee angels. It’s not even up to God who, if He exists, is nowhere around right now. It’s up to me.

Suddenly, it's all too much. Bryn and the bump watch. Vanessa with my high school yearbook. The idea that nothing's sacred. Everything's fodder. That my life belongs to anyone but me.