“So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me."Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie.""I see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the samename."I thought about thi...”

“I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her e...”

“Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the pelagic zone?""In the open sea," he said. "Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.”

“Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.”

“Just start somewhere," Dr. Marshall had said to me as I ground a banana-pineapple one to bits between my teeth. "It doesn't have to be at the beginning." She'd pulled her legs up, Indian-style, let...”

“All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.”

“Youre just another story I cant tell anymore.”

“I couldve sworn I was telling the truth when I told you I didnt miss you.”

“Let's still be friends" (things that are never true in a break up, but you have to say).”

“And so the game went on in this manner, a throng of children playing keep-away from a bowling ball tossed back and forth between two plump ogres. The air filled with shrieks and cheers and shouts o...”

“The truth is that few know the truth.”

“I reached up with my finger and traced the scar over my eyebrow, remembering when that was the greatest hurt I'd ever known.”

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”

“Do you know what pain is, Cammie? Its thebodys physical response to imminent harm.It is the minds way of telling us to move ourhand off the stove or let go of the brokenglass.”

“A sad lesson that was mine to learn is that you can't lose what was never truly yours. Nor can you hold to things that simply do not wish to be held.”