“Dad" I pleaded, "this is so [cuss word you never, ever say in front of your mother] ridiculous.”

“Oh, God," Lori said without looking at me, "what are they thinking, leaving the two of us alone out here on the dock together? We might TALK or something.""That would be awful," I said. "I might gi...”

“A smaller rocket cut across the sky, trailing smoke. It exploded in a red heart."Awwwww!" said the crowd."Upside down," said Sean.The heart was, indeed, upside down. It grew and grew, upside down, ...”

“Your confidence in me is heartwarming.Makes me want to return all the money I stole from the little old ladies and kick the heroin.”

“Adam Lori called loudly enough for me to hear her but not so loud that her voice would carry up to my mom in the marina office- or to her dad who might be listening from their screened porch facin...”

“Let's go," I said."Go where?""On Lori's date with Parker."Now he looked at me over the nerdy spectacles he wore for reading."I wasn't aware it was a double date. And you're not my type.”

“I stood like Adam in his lonely gardenOn that first morning, shaken out of sleep,Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.”

“I love you. It hurts more than anything ever has, but I do. So don't you dare tell me I don't. Don't you ever say it again!”

“Whoever said that the past isn't dead had it backward. It's the future that's already dead, already played out.”

“And youre beautiful. Youd have to work pretty hard to mess that up.”

“And you’re beautiful. You’d have to work pretty hard to mess that up.”