Take what you want and pay for it, says God. You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and you will have to pay it.

I used to think I sewed us together at the edges with my own hands, pulled the stitches tight and I could unpick them any time I wanted. Now I think it always ran deeper than that and farther, underground; out of sight and way beyond my control.

This girl: she bent reality around her like a lens bending light, she pleated it into so many flickering layers that you could never tell which one you were looking at, the longer you stared the dizzier you got.

My memories of them had rubbed thin with overuse, worn to frail color transparencies flickering on the walls of my mind...

We had no one else to learn this from- none of our parents were shining examples of relationship success- so we learned this from each other: when someone you love needs you to, you can get a hold of your five-alarm temper, get a hold of the shapeless things that scare you senseless, act like an adult instead of the Cro-Magnon teenager you are, you can do a million things you never saw coming.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect.