She was up and down—from fire and brimstone to smoke and ashes.

I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father.

I tore open the closet door and began feverishly sorting through the shirts piled on the floor in the vain hope that inside that pile there might be some wondrously perfect shirt down there, a nice and tough but I'm also a surprisingly good listener with a true and abiding passion for cheers and those who lead them.

I like the strings. I always have. Because that's how it feels. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is, I think. We're not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me to imagine you as an actual person. But we're not different sprouts from the same plant. I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well – but never quite perfectly, you know?

She spoke quietly then, the tiniest crack in her voice, and all at once Lacey Pemerton was not Lacey Pemberton. She was just—like, a person.

The snow may be falling in the winter of my discontent, but at least I've got sarcastic company.