I watched the edges of the leaves slowly unfold, fluttering in the breeze. "How long did you wait?" It would've been unbearably romantic if he'd had he courage to look into my face and say it, but instead, he dropped his eyes to the ground and scuffed his boot in the leaves- countless possibilities for happy days- on the ground. "I haven't stopped.

My good mood felt like an endangered species.

Do you feel better?” I asked Sam as he opened the door to the Volkswagen for me. “Yes,” he said. He was still a terrible liar. “Good,” I said. I was still a fantastic one.

Beer makes people deaf.

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?

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

The place smelled like Sam -- or, I guess, he smelled like the store. Like ink and old building and something more leafy than coffee but less interesting than weed. It was all very ... erudite. I felt surrounded by conversations I had no interest in participating in.