God knows what possessed me, but having that science book in my hand propelled me to immediate action. So I hit her with it.

We're so different. You're an intellectual. I'm an idiot." "Don't say that," I yelled. "You're not an idiot, you stupid idiot.

I didn't realize until those few days how much a hug meant. To have someone hold you could be the greatest medicine of all.

This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating.

Left alone with the dial tone...excuse me, operator, why is no one listening?

Scatter?' Tate said. 'Why? We stay here. Why go anywhere else?' 'Because we'll never know how great this place is until we leave it,' Narnie said.

I look at him. "It's odious," he says. "Detention?" I ask, confused. "Huh?" We have no idea what the other is talking about. "What's odious?" I ask. "O.D.S," he says, pointing to his discman and obviously referring to some dropkick band. Like I really care.