I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats.
The world will knock you down plenty. You don’t need to be doing it to yourself.
I deserved the shaking and the headaches and the fact that every single time I took a breath I felt a squeezing in my chest, my heart beating even though I wished it wasn’t.
Grace is my favourite church word. A state of being. Something you can pray for. Something God can grant. Something you can obtain. Perfection is out of reach. But grace – grace you can reach for.
You tell yourself that you aren’t something or that you can’t be something, and you know what? It will become true. You have to decide who you are and what you can do and then go after what you want. Because believe me, no one is going to give it to you.
I do not fall. I fell so hard so long ago there is nothing left for me to land on. I just keep falling and falling and falling.
There are a million rules for being a girl. There are a million things you have to do to get through each day. High school has things that can trip you up, ruin you, people say one thing and mean another, and you have to know all the rules, you have to know what you can and can’t do.
Talking about someone who makes you happy actually makes you happy.
Hope was supposed to be a good thing, but it was starting to feel like every other four-letter word you’re not supposed to say.
The thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating.
I suppose he’s making a real fashion statement, but this is high school. You’re not supposed to be real. You’re supposed to be enough like everyone else to get through and out into the waiting world.
I liked him first, but it doesn’t matter. I still like him. That doesn’t matter either. Or at least, it’s not supposed to.
I love you,′ I say, and I watch his smile bloom I finally get how great those three little words are. I finally get what they really mean.
That damn spark.
I don’t eat bread.′ Is she pouting? It’s hard to tell. She’s had a lot of chemicals injected into her face.
I am the living dead girl because I am too weak to die. I hate those crying dough women on TV because they are just like me, weak and broken and clinging to the hands that hold us under.
How can I remember a world that isn’t mine? One that isn’t the one I wake up in every day now?
He never heard my story but he taught me it wasn’t true. It was just pretend but pretending is hard.
Everyone else carries a backpack, but not Josh. He has a cool, beat-up messenger bag, covered with stickers protesting all kinds of things.
I see it in his eyes, he has eyes you can see everything in, and I say, “Morgan,” my voice as quiet as the ghost I am supposed to be.