"So you're always honest," I said. "Aren't you?" "No," I told him. "I'm not." "Well, that's good to know, I guess." "I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways." "How'd you mean it, then?" "I just...I don't always say what I feel." "Why not?" "Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. "Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."

I spent a lot of time looking at that picture. Wondering what I’d think of that girl, if I was someone else, seeing how easily she sits in her boyfriend’s lap, laughing, with his arms around her. I would have thought her life was perfect, the way I once thought Cass’s was. It was too easy, I was learning, to just assume things.

Your past is always your past. Even if you forget it, it remembers you.

It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again.

So finally, I decided that the best response — the safest — was none at all.

Please. She sighed. 'Can't a girl have high standards? I don't want an ordinary boy.

So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet.