Slide

You're about as delicate as an AK-47.

People have emotional ties to books, more often than you think...

Come on," he says. "And try to avoid the broken glass. Can't have you going to the nurse and meeting some other guy.

His hands are behind his back. 'Choose,' he says. 'I've already made my choice,' I say, and I grab the sleeve of his leather jacket and pull him inside.

Mattie sticks out her tongue, and I take that as my dismissal.

There's so much shit in this world-what good are friends if not to help shoulder some of the burden?

That night, I peer through my telescope, wondering why the sky looks the same when my universe has been turned completely upside down.

I look back at him, and see my father for what he is. A man. He is just a man. One night, he drank a little too much and did something stupid. He made a mistake. But he is more than that mistake. He is the man who makes us lasagna, the man who holds my mother's picture and cries when he thinks no one is looking, the man who makes broken babies whole. He is just a man. But he is a good man.

The night is cold, but I welcome it. I need to feel something other than loss, something other than pain. There is only one tree in our backyard, a great big oak tree, but it's perfect. I settle down beneath it and crack the spine on my book. It's not dusk, but it will have to do. Just like Zane said, the experience is totally different. I'm not reading to pass a stupid English quiz. I'm reading for my life, for what Zane's life was. I'm reading to see the book through his eyes. At first, the pages move slowly, but before I know it I'm halfway through. Soon it is light, and I'm finished. It swallowed me whole and then released me, a different person than I was before. I lie back and watch the sun inching its way upward. Maybe I didn't ever really know Zane, but on the other hand-maybe the part he showed to me was the only part of him that was real.

Her eyes are black as coal and filled with sadness, and I wonder what losing a child that young does to you. I'm reminded of the passage on black holes in my astronomy book, how they suck everything in until no light remains. That's what seeing your kid die must feel like.

I melt onto the couch, gasping, realizing I've never wanted anything as much as I want to rewind time and return to that kiss. And it scares me. The fact that something so beautiful and tenuous is within my grasp terrifies me because I know that, at some point, I will just end up losing it.

His breath is sweet despite the coffee, but it's laced with something else-something like sorrow.

...it reminds me of how I feel about the stars. They are bigger than me, bigger than us all, and that's what makes them beautiful.

In order to give something, you need to have it inside of you to give.

The fact is that most people keep secrets hidden behind their eyes.

When my teacher woke me up, I stared into her face, terrified she'd know about the bad thing I'd just been doing. But then I realized everyone was doing bad things.

I know there's nothing you can say to make death okay. It is what it is.

He reaches out and trails his finger along a poster that says STAR in bubble letters. Safe, Tolerant, Accountable, Respectful-all the things teachers wish students were, but we can't always be because we're human beings and not robots.

But you can’t know how she was feeling. Depression is an insidious monster. It eats you up from the inside. No, I think Sophie was in an immense amount of pain.