You know . . . a lot of kids at school hate their parents. Some of them got hit. And some of them got caught in the middle of wrong lives. Some of them were trophies for their parents to show the neighbors like ribbons or gold stars. And some of them just wanted to drink in peace.

Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie, and even if they do, it's no excuse.

He was the boy that made mix tapes with themes and hand-colored covers until the day he hit my sister and stopped crying.

Do you always think this much? It's just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.

He's a wallflower. You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.

It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror. It just happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing. And then I start to breathe really hard trying to see something, but I can't. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it scares me.

I know that things get worse before they get better because that’s what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big.