Knowing what I was, and wanting me, anyway.

Sam,' the girl said. 'Sam.' She was the past present and future. I wanted to answer , but I was broken.

I remember [in teenage years] thinking there were a lot of check boxes out there to sort teens into appropriate molds, and they didn't seem to make check boxes for whatever it was that I had grown up into. I definitely explore that a lot in my novels.

People shouldn't have to earn kindness. They should have to earn cruelty.

All that mattered was that something had struck the match, and Gansey was burning.

Afterward, Isabel drove me home and I shut myself in the study with Rilke, and I read and I wanted. And leaving you (there arent words to untangle it) Your life, fearful and immense and blossoming, So that, sometimes frustrated, and sometimes understanding Your life is sometimes a stone in you, and then, a star I was beginning to undertand poetry.

I missed the sound of her shuffling her homework while I listened to music on her bed. I missed the cold of her feet against my legs when she climbed into bed. I missed the shape of her shadow where it fell across the page of my book. I missed the smell of her hair and the sound of her breath and my Rilke on her nightstand and her wet towel thrown over the back of her desk chair. It felt like I should be sated after having a whole day with her, but it just made me miss her more.