...You can't unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.

Like so many before them, they didn't care that my dad was only the messenger. They still wanted to shoot him.

I hated high school. I was not the greatest student, participated in no activities, and spent most of my time hanging out in my parking lot.

There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

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.

Maybe my sister and I shared more than we thought. We were both waiting and wishing for something we couldn't completely control: I wanted to be alone, and she the total opposite. It was weird, really, to have something so contrary in common. But at least it was something.

This was just one night, one chance to vary and see where it took me. The fireflies were probably already out: maybe it wasn’t just a season or a time but a whole world I’d forgotten. I’d never know until I stepped out into it. So I did.