..there she is, and I am watching her through plexiglass, and she looks like Margo Roth Spiegelman, this girl I have known since I was two–this girl who was an idea that I loved. And it is only now, when she closes her notebook and places it inside a backpack next to her and then stands up and walks toward us, that I realize that the idea is not only wrong by dangerous. What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person.

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

And then it was the kind of dark your eyes never adjust to.

He may be a malevolent sorcerer, but Tiny Cooper is his own goddamned man, and if he wants to be a gigantic skipper, then that's his right as a huge American.

Me: "If you want me to be a teenager, don't send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot." Mom: "You don't take pot, for starters." Me: "See, that's the kind of thing I'd know if you got me a fake ID.

I don't know how I look, but I know how I feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.

I will play out the string. I will not betray your trust. I will find you.