I need to live my life in the light of their deaths. I need to live.

If you take, we will take back. Steal from us, and we will rob you blind. When you squeeze, we will hit. This is the way the world is made now.

When we get out of highschool we'll look back and know we did everything right, that we kissed the cutest boys and went to the best parties, got in just enough trouble, listened to our music too loud, smoked too many cigarettes, and drank too much and laughed too much and listened too little, or not al all.

The worst is knowing I can't tell anybody what's happening -or what's happened- to me. Not even my mom.

For the first time in my life I actually feel sorry for Carol. I'm only seventeen years old, and I already know something she doesn't know: I know that life isn't life if you just float through it. I know that the whole point- the only point- is to find things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.

This is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot.

He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief.