I thought weirdness was a good thing. I don't mean that defensively, either. I thought it was something to be cultivated.

Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another. You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you.

Some promises aren’t worth keeping.

Because I am about to be devoured by poodles," I quip. "Remember me always, my love.

To remind me, pain is the best teacher

She knew she shouldn't feel that way about a monster, but right then, she wanted nothing more than a monster of her very own.

I thought I was getting better at this. I thought I was starting to make peace with being in love with a girl who despises me, but I don't think I'm so okay with it after all. Somewhere along the line I made a dark bargain with the universe without ever really being aware of it--a bargain that if I was allowed to see her, even if we never spoke, then I could live with that. And now a week without her has swallowed up all of my rational thinking. I feel like a junkie, sick for my next fix and not sure when it will come.