Bones & All

“sometimes it’s the worst things in life that have the most to teach us. You take what you can, and as for the ugly parts, well—you ‘leave it go and get on with the business of living,’

“Stop it,” he said. “Stop being such an idiot.”
“I’m going to see my father now, and anything that happens after that is none of your business.”
He actually seemed hurt. “Do you really mean that?”
Of course I couldn’t look at him as I replied. “Yes,” I said. “I really mean that.”
“What if you change your mind?”
“I won’t.”
“You will. I know you will. But I can’t hang around waiting for you, Maren.”
I slung my rucksack over my shoulder and slammed the passenger door. “Then don’t.”

I never thought I’d be jealous of a girl in a mental hospital. And yet … if I could have switched places with her, I would have. It would have solved our problems—hers and mine. My father and I could have adjoining rooms, play checkers and go for walks up and down the lawn in our white pajamas. We could still listen to Revolver together.

ery kindness she’d ever shown me had come out of guilt, not love.

hy sleep under a ceiling when you got a sky full of stars out there?”

ou ain’t never gonna feel nothin’ other people ain’t been through a million times before.”

never knew something could be so grotesque and so beautiful at the same time.

I wanted to knit myself a sweater I could hide inside.

That night I learned there are two kinds of hunger. The first I can satisfy with cheeseburgers and chocolate milk, but there’s a second part of me, biding its time. It can go on like that for months, maybe even years, but sooner or later I’ll give in to it. It’s like there’s a great big hole inside me, and once it takes his shape he’s the only thing that can fill it.

I wanted to be a cicada. I wanted to pull my skin off and leave it in the bushes and nobody would recognize me, not even my own mother. I would be a completely different person and I wouldn’t remember a thing.