Pie makes everybody happy.
In the spring of fifth grade, the boob fairy arrived with her wand and smacked Cassie wicked hard.
One of the seeds has split its shell and reaches a white hand upward. An apple tree growing from an apple seed growing in an apple. I show the little plantseed to Ms. Keen. She gives me extra credit. David rolls his eyes. Biology is so cool.
Maybe I’ll be an artist if I grow up.
I kissed him until everything that hurt inside me melted into a pool of black water so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom. As long as I was touching him, I wouldn’t drown.
I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped.
Ghosts are waiting in the shadows of the room, patient dull shimmers. The others can see them, too, I know it. We’re all afraid to talk about what stares at us from the dark.
I have this halfway place, a rest stop on the road to sleep, where I can stay for hours. I don’t even need to close my eyes, just stay safe under the covers and breathe.
The fat, pumpkin-colored moon rose, turning bloodstains into shadows. All of the colors of shirts and jackets and uniforms paled to the same shade of gray.
Odysseus had twenty years to shed his battle skin. My grandfather left the battlefield in France and rode home in a ship that crawled across the ocean slowly so he could catch his breath. I get on a plane in hell and get off, hours later, at home.
IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding. Andy Evans raped me in August when I was drunk and too young to know what was happening. It wasn’t my fault. He hurt me. It wasn’t my fault. And I’m not going to let it kill me. I can grow.
Nothing good ever happens at lunch. The cafeteria is a giant sound stage where they film daily segments of Teenage Humiliation Rituals. And it smells gross.
You can’t speak up for your right to be silent. That’s letting the bad guys win.
Precalculus was taught in dog whistle, a pitch too high to hear.
I sent a simple smiley face, because my phone did not have a smiley face that was wrapping her hands around her own throat and beating her head against a wall.
I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.
I cry to let everything out.
Write about the emotions you fear the most.
You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.
The bathroom door swings open. Emma sees the blood painting my skin and the red rivers carved on my body. Emma sees the wet knife, silver and bone. The screams of my little sister shatter mirrors.