Not, like, that, boychik, you sound like a herd of elephants charging through a music store.

Renee was beautiful, but she was my friend now. On the other hand, Annette was my friend, but now she was beautiful. makes about as much sense as anything ever does with girls

(Yes teenage boys who are fine always cry on their mothers’ shoulders until they leave a snot trail.)

This was the kid who used to toddle over to my bed at 6 o’ clock in the morning every weekend morning to pull on my blankets so I’d get up and watch cartoons with him. This was the kid who once made me play Hungry Hungry Hippos for an hour straight, until I thought my hands were going to fall off from slamming down those dumb little levers to make the hippos’ heads move. This was the kid who had spent an entire days at a time begging me to play Chutes and Ladders with him. And now he was feeling too sick to play with me.

I’ll probably just stand in a corner, trying not to be noticed, until the decoration committee accidentally packs me into a box at the end of the night. There I will lie, crammed in between rolls of crepe paper, until the New Year’s dance two months from now. Jeffrey thought about this for a moment and said, Won’t they notice the box is too heavy when they go to put it away?

Or maybe...their biggest fear is that they will get close to you again, and you'll go and drop dead.

Not, like, that, boychik, you sound like a herd of elephants charging through a music store.