Something Real

Hate is a lot like love. It's warm and fills you up until every part of you is tingling to release it.

I’m sitting here on the Kaye Gibbons Show, and all I can think is that the whole country is sick. Sick with the idea that it’s good to be known as seen by as many people as possible, to show every part of our lives to the public at large. Whether it’s Facebook photos, blogs, or reality TV, it’s like nobody is content to just live life. The worth of our existence seems to be measured in pixels and megabytes and “likes.” Those of use whose lives can be downloaded seem to have the most value – until someone outrageous comes along to claim their time in the spotlight.

I don't like seeing myself on camera." But that's not it--that sounds shallow, like I'm worried I'll look fat or something. "It's like somebody is walking on my grave. TV immortalizes you. The episodes are what my family would watch if I died.

This, I think, is a little glimpse of what life could be like without my family. Home could be a place of laughter and love, a refuge. I'm filled with a terrifying weightlessness, like I've jumped off a cliff, but I know that if I don't look down, I'll be just fine.

You know those primitive tribal people who believed a camera could steal your soul? Turns out they were right.

This night felt like a last hurrah, like we could blaze our brightest, at the apex of our insane adolescence. This was our Mardi Gras before the dark days of Lent.

Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetrrs inside your skull

Somehow, the pain and rage and confusion of the past eighteen years dissolves until all that is left is this one perfect moment; unscripted, unedited, it's ours and ours alone.

You can't screw up your own suicide and then expect the universe to give you presents wrapped in the skin of a wonderful boy. That's just not the way it works.

If my sister were a character in a Victorian drama, she would be the snobbish rich girl with a penchant for talking shit about everyone behind their fan.

He looks like the kind of boy who would jump trains, strum guitars, and pass a joint.

The past is past. You tried to kill yourself. So what? I humped a couch in season twelve. We all have our skeletons.

We're together now, that's all that matters.

After graduation, we can just … ride into the sunrise,” he says. “The sunrise?” His lips twitch. “If we ride into the sunset, we’d wind up in the middle of the Pacific.

Why would you get a cat?” “Because it’s my destiny.

Even Mom doesn't understand how being in front of a camera all the time twists and warps you. How one second it makes you feel unbelievably alive and the next publicly strips you down until all that's left is one big question mark.

I'm not Bonnie™ or Chloe. I'm the essence of her, the nontrademarked person the camera can never capture and my parents have no right to sign over. There is a sovereign nation encased in this skin that MetaReel can never trademark.

Fourteen Kids, Two Dads, One Mom, Two Nannies, Two Tutors—and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

After graduation, we can just ... ride into the sunrise," he says. "The sunrise?" His lips twitch. "If we ride into the sunset, we'd wind up in the middle of the pacific" "Just my luck," I mutter.