Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.

It's the same thing,' I told her. 'What is?' 'Being afraid and being alive.' 'No,' she said slowly, and now it was as if she was speaking a language she knew at first I wouldn't understand, the very words, not to mention the concept, being foreign to me. 'Macy, no. It's not.

And guys don't get attached, guys don't give themselves over completely, and guys lie. That's why they should be handled with great trepidation, not trusted, and held at arm's length whenever possible.

Once she'd loved my filet mignon, my carnivore inklings, but now she was a vegan princess, living off of beans. She'd given up the cheese and bacon, sworn off Burger King, and when I wouldn't do the same she gave me back my ring. I stood there by the romaine lettuce, feeling my heart pine. Wishing that this meatless beauty still would be all mine. She turned around to go to checkout, fifteen items or less. And I knew this was the last go-round, so this is what I said. ... "Don't you ever give me no rotten tomato, 'cause all I ever wanted was your sweet potato.

But I always worked harder when I was up against something, or when someone assumed I couldn't succeed. That's what drove me, all those nights studying. The fact that so many figured I couldn't do it.

All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.