I didn’t get her cutting at all. She’d done it sporadically, ever since the accident and it scared me each time. She'd try to explain it to me, how she didn't want to die—she just needed to get it out somehow. She felt so much emotionally, she would say, that a physical outlet—physical pain—was the only way to make the internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.

We're the same! Even Sonya says we are. We've always been the same, and we're both acting the same stupid way now! We hold ourselves to higher standards than everyone else.

People often ask where I get my inspiration from, and I always say I have no good answer because, well, inspiration comes from everywhere: people, places, memories.

We all have moments of weakness. It’s how we recover from them that really counts.

Really, Sage? A date?” I sighed. “Yes, Adrian. A date.” “A real date. Not, like, doing homework together,” he added. “I mean like where you go out to a movie or something. And a movie that’s not part of a school assignment. Or about something boring.” “A real date.

Life and death were so unpredictable. So close to each other. We existed moment to moment, never knowing who would be the next to leave the world. I was still in it, barely, and as I looked up from the ashes, everything around me seemed so sweet and so beautiful. The trees. The stars. The moon. I was alive -- and I was glad I was.

Adrian's face was the picture of perfect politeness and restraint, meaning something disastrous was about to happen.