Imaginary Girls

The story you choose to tell isn't always the story you believe.

Sometimes a perfect memory can be ruined if put to words.

There's something ugly about a pretty boy who knows he's pretty and assumes everyone else know it too.

Most people, in the end, really are all on their own.

Ruby’s stories didn’t have morals. They meant one thing in the light and one thing in the dark and another thing entirely when she was wearing sunglasses.

There was something to be said for the bodiless feeling that came after the cold. Something I would always remember. When you forget how bad it hurts, you feel so free.

This is how I know blood is meaningless family connections are a lot like old gum -you don't have to keep chewing. You can always spit it out and stick it under the table. You can walk away.

Ruby told me it didn't matter what a boy was thinking about you so long as you had a good hold on what you were thinking about him.

I could see her smile. I wished I hadn't because it was the kind of smile she never gave to me. It was a smile for a boy who wanted to know her and never would. A smile for a girl who wanted to be like her and never could be. A smile for a perfect stranger.

It was Ruby's favorite kind of story: where the boys lost and the girls won and got a souvenir in the bargain.

Something I would always remember. When you forget how bad it hurts, you feel so free.

I was an echo of her.

In reality I was a pencil drawing of a photocopy of a Polaroid of my sister- you could see the resemblance in a certain light if you were seeking it out because I told you first if you were being nice.

...I sat there in the boat under her stars and her moon gated on all sides by the mountains watching the last bits of her breath float up and away.

Balance, Chlo … Give and take. Push and pull. You for her, her for you. I think they're mad that I tried to have it both ways to keep you alive and her, too.

Sure. I would go. Balloon or bus or thumb out onthe highway

Sometimes you need more than one way to reach the outside

... but when I asked where the extra doors led,Ruby smiled and said sometimes you need more than oneway to reach the outside...

She smelled of deep, dark things and untold secrets and all of what she was keeping from me.

They forgot who she was: Something fantastic we could never explain. Someone better and bolder than every one of us. Someone to paint murals and build bridges for. Someone worth every ounce of our love. Someone powerful, but in the end not powerful enough.