But it's strange, when you've always been told something is true, like the moon will come back. You need proof. And while you wait, you feel the entire balance of your world just tipping. It's crazy. But when it's over, and it does come back, that's the best, because it's all you want, everything narrows to just that. It's this great rush, like for that one second everything's okay with the world again. It's amazing.

But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.

If he'd been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.

Welcome to adulthood," she said. "It sucks as much as high school.

It's not always so simple, Haven. Sometimes there isn't a good guy and a bad guy. Sometimes even the ones you want to believe turn out to be liars.

Lifestyle is an terrible, unpleasant put to not have a very finest buddy.

But as was so often the case, it was the one person missing who you thought about more than the ones who were right in front of you.