There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.

I don't know. Just because someone's pretty doesn't mean she's decent. Or vice versa. I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.

I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness that I'd practically invented.

She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old enough by then to know not to believe it anymore.

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.

He doesn’t love me. He might still love me as I was at fifteen, when I didn’t know any better. When I trusted everyone. I’m not that person any more. He’s just a boy. He was the first to really hurt me, but he’s just a boy. There were a lot of them.

So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.