It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.

I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.

God, I hate you,” she says. “So much. Why do boys think that it will be better to lie and tell a girl how much they loved her and how they only dumped her for her own good? That they only tried to rearrange her brain for her own good? Does it make you feel better, Cassel? Does it? Because from my perspective, it really sucks.

I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like DYING.

His words were still clear in her mind from that first meeting. "Whoever eats this will love you." She looked into the mirror, at her birthmark, bright as blood, at her kiss-stung lips, at the absurd smile stretching across her face. Carefully separating out the crushed pieces of shell, she pulled the dried pulp free from its cage of veins. Piece by piece, she put the sweet brown fruit in her own mouth and swallowed it down.

She wants me to take out Patton.” Barron’s brows draw together. “Take out? As in transform him?” “No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner. She thinks we’d make a good couple.

This is never going to be over,” I shout. “Someone will always be after me. There’s always consequences. Well, BRING IT. I am done with being afraid, and I am done with you.