The Innocent

This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.

boy is getting all Ds and Fs in math so his parents send him to Catholic school. On his first report card, his parents are shocked to see their son getting straight As. When his parents ask him why, he says, “Well, when I went into the chapel and saw that guy nailed to a plus sign, I knew they were serious.

People had long memories. No matter how many years passed, he would always be the subject of whispers and innuendos.

Tragedy sort of works this way: Once it snakes its way in, it cuts down all your defenses and allows its brethren easy access to feed.

Survival is the thing. The mind will twist to survive. Anything can become normal.

In this life you don’t find too many people you can truly count on

Bad follows some people. It hooks into them and never lets them go.

You grieve, not just for the dead, but for yourself, for what might have been

You learn at a young age how longing and lust can twist a mind. It is rarely pretty

Maybe suffering gives us a better appreciation. You learn to fight for what others just take for granted

You go back enough years, you pull each other out of enough fires, you become like one.

Growing up, she'd decided, was never easy. Adolescence is a war zone, no matter where you live

Tragedy sort of works this way: Once it snakes its way in it cuts down all your defences and allows its brethren easy access to feed.

The world is neither cruel nor joyous. It is simply random, full of particles hurtling chemicals mixing and reacting. There is no real order. There is no preordained cursing of the evil and protecting of the righteous.

The good men, the ones who wanted to commit and raise children, were scooped up early. The field became thinner and thinner as the years went by.

Tragedy sort of works this way: Once it snakes it's way in, it cuts down all your defenses and allows it's brethren easy access to feed.

If prison teaches you one thing, it's how to deaden yourself. You show nothing. Ever. You never allow yourself anything, even an emotion, because it will either be exploited or taken away.

It was a perverse offshoot of the Stockholm syndrome. Survival is the thing. The mind will twist to survive. Anything can become normal.

They don't smile like that anymore. They were good kids, well-adjusted and all, but there was still an inescapable, underlying sadness. When you looked closely, the smiles were more cautious now, a wince in the eye, a fear of what else might be taken from them.

He understood subhuman nature. He had seen the Fates curse him and his family enough to come up with an explanation or, if you will, an anti-explanation for all that wrong: In sum, there is no explanation.

There are different types of troublemakers. (...) You we're rebellious, yes, but you always had a good heart. You were never cruel to others. That, for me, has always been the key. You often got in trouble because you were sticking up for someone weaker.

The good is fragile.

Thing is, you don't take too many stands in this life.

In this life you don't find too many people you can truly count on.

They do not have big ideas or a grandiose vision of what America should be like. They pretty much just love to hate.

You are the worst sort of friend. You are too scared to help. You will never forget that feeling. Cowardice.

You want to do something, but you are afraid, seriously afraid. You can't move. Your legs feel like rubber. Your arms tingle. And you hate yourself for that.

Like every kid in your town you grow up worrying about your future and what college you will get into.