Crazy

If only his mind were as easy to fix as his body.

...I thought it was safer and easier to be one my own. But I don't think I was to be invisible anymore because-because it's lonely, and I don't want to be lonely. I don't want to be alone.

I glance at the exit across the room. I want out. The bird in my chest is crashing up against its cage. I can feel the heavy thump, thump, thump of its feverish body inside and I open my mouth, not to speak, but to let the bird out so I can breathe.

If you love someone, you stand by him, forever, no matter what.

Anyway, I'm afraid to ask about Reed, where he is, because I'm afraid I can't handle the answer. The way people come and go in your life, where they're present and alive one minute, and missing or dead the next, is an idea that's too big for me to grasp. Life just seems way too fragile all of a sudden, and everybody seems to take it so lightly, as if they think we're all made like army tanks, big and strong and able to roll over anything in our way. And it's not just our bodies that are fragile; our minds are even more so. I don't know what fine membrane separates sanity from insanity, but after watching my dad slip-sliding around on the border between the two all my life, I know how easy it is to cross, and this scares me. This scares me to death. I've just been wondering, what if I had had the switchblade in my hand? What if Reed had dared me and I was the one with the switchblade? Maybe I would have used it. Then I'd be the one missing. It could have been me. I could have been Reed. Reed is me and I am Reed is Dad is Reed is me.

Jason you can't control the universe and everything that happens in it, but you can control your reaction to it. You can control you, and how you choose to live each day.

We sit huddled together for a few minutes, just being there with one another, and it feels dangerous to me that nobody is saying anything.

Good for you, Jason. It's perfectly natural to be angry with your mother for dying. Everybody who loses someone special goes through that. It's just part of the grieving process.