...when people we love make choices, we don't always understand them. But we can go on loving them, just the same. It isn't a matter of comprehension. It's forgiveness.

if you don't get sick, you won't get well.

But it was like wearing a size five sneakers when your foot is a seven- you can get by for a few steps, and then you set down and pull off the shoes because it just plain much

My whole life was about her, what if her whole life wasn’t all about me?

I’m gonna miss you,” Brianna says. “I’m gonna miss you too, baby,” Angelo murmurs. For Pete’s sake. It’s not like she’s leaving on a trip around the world. She’s only headed to homeroom.

Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a breakdown, the world pounds in your ears; a rush of blood, of consequence? Do you now how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to ribbons, and still you have to speak it?

Sometimes I think there's a beast that lives inside me, in the cavern that's where my heart should be, and every now and then it fills every last inch of my skin, so that I can't help but do something inappropriate. Its breath is full of lies; it smells of spite.