I needed a break... from myself.

But they were wrong. There was a reason.

Here's a tip. If you touch a girl, even as joke, and she pushes you off, leave... her... alone. Don't touch her. Anywhere! Just stop. Your touch does nothing but sicken her.

And concentrating on the spot where the two spindles should be is the closest I get to looking Hannah's eyes as she tells my story.

And what about you-the rest of you-did you notice the scars you left behind? No. Probably not. Because most of them can't be seen with the naked eye.

It's important to be aware of how we treat others. Even though someone appears to shrug off a sideways comment or to not be affected by a rumor, it's impossible to know everything else going on in that person's life, how we might be adding to his/her pain. People do have an impact on the lives of others; that's undeniable.

If time was a string connecting all of your stories, that party would be the point where everything knots up. And that knot keeps growing and growing, getting more and more tangled, dragging the rest of your stories into it.