We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.

To remind me, pain is the best teacher

You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.

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.

The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies.

Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.

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