My friend is having his period," I told the pizza guy, and handed him his tip. "He needs Britney and extra cheese to get him through it. I'm trying to be supportive.

It could kill you," Maura said. Then there was the awkward moment that arrives when two thirds of the people in the room know that the other third is supposed to die in fewer than nine months, and the person who is meant to die is not one of the ones in the know.

I watched her and I watched the birds' shadows flit across her face, and I...wanted. I wanted more happy memories to hang up on the ceiling, so many happy memories with this girl that they would crowd the ceiling and flap out into the hall and burst out of the house.

And then I opened my eyes and it was just Grace and me - nothing anywhere but Grace and me - she pressing her lips together as though she were keeping my kiss inside her, and me, holding this moment that was as fragile as a bird in my hands.

It occurred to me then that I was the opposite of my father. Because I was very, very good at destroying things.

I sat on the hill, the wind whispering through the long grass that surrounded me. I stared at the stars and wanted more than what I was and more than what the world was and just - wanted.

Don't cry pretty girl. Who you are is why you're so good at everything. You won't let yourself be otherwise. And thats what fascinates me." Duke- Lament