Nightmares end. That's how you know they're nightmares.

What did you do to Amma?" "I was late to school." He studied my face. I studied his. "Number 2?" I nodded. "Sharp?" "Started out sharp and then she sharpened it.

I am a friend. I have in my possession two thousand assorted buttons, eight hundred keys, and only one friend. Perhaps it is not something you can understand. I have not often been one before. I will be now.

I stared at the creased map on my wall, the thin green line connecting all the places I had read about. There they were, all the cities of my imaginary future, held together with tape and marker and pins. In six months, a lot had changed. There was no thin green line that could lead me to my future anymore. Just a girl.

Maybe it needed to be broken. Sometimes things have to break before you can fix them.

Are you insinuatin' that my daughter is a liar?" "Oh, no, not at all. I'm saying your daughter is a liar. Surely you can appreciate the difference.

we love what we love and who we love who we love and why we love why we love and find a falling shoelace knotted and strung between the fingers of strangers