All of my stories, they don't come from my high school experience, but they're definitely based on things that happened to me in high school, or things that happened to friends of mine, or things that I wish had happened to me.

'I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'

If you have just one person believe in you, you'll always find your way

If only you could really use a fail-proof system to know who was worth keeping and who needed to be thrown away. It would make it so much easier to move through the world, picking and choosing what connections to make, or whether to make any at all.

My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.” “You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.