I start to back away before I do something wildly inappropriate, like jump on top of him.

You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist

It's Connecticut: being like the people around you is the whole point.

The only thing worse than having no friends is being pitied for having no friends.

But that's the problem with love - it acts on you, works through you, resists your attempts to control.

The walls are covered -crammed- with writing. No. Not writing. They are covered with a single four-letter word that has been inscribed over and over, on every available surface. Love.

No wonder the regulators decided on segregation of boys and girls: Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare, this feeling angry and self-conscious and confused and annoyed all the time.