I grabbed his hand. He jumped and stared at the connection like something both magical and dangerous had happened. "Do you wanna be friends?" I asked.
Lobsters fascinated me. Everything from their name to their claws to their magnificent red had me hooked. My hair was that read, the kind of read that looks okay on everything but people, because a person's hair is not supposed to be red. Orange, yes...
Are you French?' I asked instead. 'Oui!' Foreign. Foreign spy. French Communist Party acted on Stalin's instructions during part of World War II. French Communist spy. Stop it stop it stop it I turned to Art, a black kid who was a foot and a half tal...
The rest of the year, I wondered if the point of Christmas was just spending money and getting fat and opening gifts. Indulging. But when Christmas finally comes, and that warm, tingly, mints-and-sweaters-and-fireplace-fires feeling gathers in the bo...
Did you meet your soul mate? That always happens on the first day of school, right?' 'Oh God, Charlie, she's letting you read again! You went straight to the paranormal section, didn't you?
There is no force in high school more powerful than one person's blunt disagreement.
My parents didn't grow up here or anything. They chose to live in this nowhere town. Why? Because it was named after Hannibal of Carthage. Their basic train of thought was this: Hannibal's Rest? And we're naming our child after Alexander the Great? M...
Intelligence is not measured by how much you know, but by how much you have the capacity to learn.
Mile's fingers pressed into the small of my back. "Basorexia," he mumbled. "Gesundheit." He laughed. "It's an overwhelming desire to kiss." "I thought you weren't good at figuring out what you felt." "I'm probably using the word in the wrong context....
Sometimes I think people take reality for granted.
I didn't have the luxury of taking reality for granted. And I wouldn't say I hated people who did, because that's just about everyone. I didn't hate them. They didn't live in my world. But that never stopped me from wishing I lived in theirs.
Believing something existed and then finding out it didn't was like reaching the top of the stairs and thinking there was one more step.
No, you're not a bad person," he said. "And Richter isn't a bad person, and I'm not a bad person. We're just people, and people sometimes do stupid things.
I was the big sister. I was supposed to set and example and lead the way so people would say, 'Hey, you're Alex's sister, aren't you? You two look exactly alike!' instead of 'Hey, you're Alex's sister, aren't you? Are you crazy, too?' The only exampl...
It kind of felt like she was kicking me in the gut, and every kick said
I realized everyone around me was wearing a uniform. Black pants, white button-down shirts, green ties. Gotta love the smell of institutional equality in the morning.
People say teenagers think they're immortal, and I agree with that. But I think there's a difference between thinking you're immortal and knowing you can survive. Thinking you're immortal leads to arrogance, thinking you deserve the best. Surviving m...
Do you do this all the time?' he asked. 'No,' I said. 'Just today.' He smiled.
