I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don’t even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I’m going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn’t involve dying.
I envy what I fear and hate what I envy.
Carney is like a graveyard where everyone already owns their plots and has built houses on top of them.
Yesterday when we went over the plan again and again, I never thought about Grandad showing up. Because I’m an idiot, basically – an idiot with poor planning skills. Of course he’s here. Where else would he be? Seriously, what else could go wrong?
I drive him to school, then I break back into Barron’s house. I’m the best kind of thief, the kind that leaves behind items equal in value to those he’s stolen. Then I go home and shave until my skin is as slick as any slickster’s.
The row of dolls watched her impassively from the bookshelf, their tea party propriety almost certainly offended.
Let me look out for you. Let your enemies become mine.
The first boy I fell in love with didn’t know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.
She can’t help it. She loves the con. I tell myself I’m not like her, but I have to admit I love it too.
Poisonous jealousy thrummed through my veins.
For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.
You’re like this leopard who’s pretending to be a house cat.
It’s hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don’t even know about.
He’s quiet then. We lie next to each other, twin corpses waiting for burial.
There are dog people and cat people.
Once, she made a boy come out of his house and kiss her under the streetlight. It was her first kiss. She thinks it was probably his, too. She never told him and she never, ever will.
Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another. You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you.
There’s nothing like a gunshot to make you the life of the party.
It’s hard to look at Barron now, but I do. He’s smirking. His black hair and black suit make him into a shadow, as if I conjured some dark mirror of myself.
I wonder if he really could rationalize what I did to him, really treat betrayal like the slight transgression of a recalcitrant business partner. I wonder if I hurt him. If he can rationalize what I did to him, it’s easy to imagine how he rationalized what he did to me.