I am almost a real girl the entire drive home. I went to a diner. I drank hot chocolate and ate french fries. Talked to a guy for a while. Laughed a couple of times. A little like ice-skating for the first time, wobbly, but I did it.

They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they're dry.

So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.

I like cheeseburgers too much to be a model.

Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It's not like you can blame a mattress when people don't tie it down tight enough.

I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page

Each reader has to find her or his own message within a book.