A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?

I am a mess. Like that MargieMocha, I am spilled across a floor, but there's nobody to mop me up. I have only one thing to show for the day: Perry Delloplane. The sound of a name. It is a grape in my mouth. I roll it over and over on my tongue--perrydelloplaneperrydelloplaneperrydelloplaneperrydelloplane--but when I try to crush it with my teeth, it slips away.

Events become feelings, feelings become events

I’ll still be missing you as much as ever. I’l still smile at the memory of you. I’ll still be - Okay, I’ll say it again - loving you, but I won’t abandon myseld for you. I cannot be faithful to you without being faithful to myself.

She's in tenth grade,' he said. 'I hear she's been homeschooled till now.' Maybe that explains it,' I said.

Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?' No,' I said. People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.

I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.