Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.

You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.

I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.

I am a gluttonous, gorging failure. A waste. My body isn’t used to high-sugar carbs laced with witchcraft. It can barely cope with soup and crackers.

Picasso.” He whispers like a priest. “Picasso. Who saw the truth. Who painted the truth, molded it, ripped from the earth with two angry hands.

Did you read last nights assignments?" Say "yes'" and get hammered again. Say "no'" and the same thing would happen.

My first class is biology. I can't find it and get my first demerit for wandering the hall. It is 8:50 in the morning. Only 699 days and 7 class periods until graduation.