I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults. I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.

I'm sorry. I know you loved her. It was hard not to.

We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved.

But there's so much to do: cigarettes to smoke, sex to have, swings to swing on.

Light, the visible reminder of Invisible Light.

You can't just make me different, and the leave. Because I was fine before.

In the ensuing silence, I have time to contemplate the word cute— how dismissive it is, how it’s the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, “Feel Bad About Yourself.