Cept for Ben, who I can’t describe much further without seeming soft and stupid and like a boy, so I won’t, just to say that I never knew my pa, but if you woke up one day and had a choice of picking one from a selecshun, if someone said, here, then, boy, pick who you want, then Ben wouldn’t be the worst choice you could make that morning.

Just cuz yer going there and I'm staying here," I say. "It don't mean we're parting." "No," she says and I know she understands. "No, it certainly doesn't." "I ain't parting from you again," I say, still looking at our fingers. "Not even in my head.

Why can't we learn to live with how we are? And whatever anybody chooses is okay by the rest of us?

Whereas the town knows all about you already and wants to know more and wants to beat you with what it knows till how can you have any of yourself left at all?

Now that I've seen her, I can't stop seeing her.

Too much talking," I say. "Not enough running.

I do what I have to do," I say. I do what I have to do to save him. I do what I have to do to save Todd.