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.

I planned my whole future around Adam," she said now, quietly. "And now I have nothing." "No," I told her, "now you just don't have Adam. There's a big difference, Lissa. You just can't see it yet.

But even more so, it reminded me that this was all really happening. Stanford. The end of the summer. The beginning of my real life. It was no longer just creeping up, peeking over the horizon, but instead lingering in plain sight.

Silence is so freaking loud

No," I snapped. "I mean, no. I'm answering. I'm just collecting my response." Another few seconds passed. Is there a time limit for this?" he asked. I shot him a look. "Just wondering.

Lissa lowered her voice and added, "I might not even go to school anyway. I might defer and join the Peace Corps and go to Africa and shave my head and dig latrines." "Shave your head?" I said, because, really, this was the most ludicrous part of the whole thing. "You? Do you have any idea how ugly most people's bare heads are? They've got all kinds of bumps, Lissa. And you won't know until it's too late and you're flat-out bald.

The first boy was always the hardest.