Amy Reed

“Your boyfriend smells bad, says Sarah as she sniffs the armpit of the giant sweatshirt.All boys smell bad I say and she nods her head like we have just figured out something very important.”

“Do you remember? Do you remember the world before the dark? Do you remember the world with mothers and fathers and stillness that did not feel like death?”

“I don't know if anyone can ever really explain why they believe in someone. But I do. I believe in you. I hope that's worth something.”

“You act like you're invincible, but I know deep down you want someone to hold your hand and buy you flowers and look you in the eye and tell you you're his soul mate. You want someone who will love every piece of you, even the pieces you can't love yourself.”

“What if I'm so broken I can never do something as basic as feed myself? Do you realize how twisted that is? It amazes me sometimes that humans still exist. We're just animals, after all. And how can an animal get so removed from nature that it loses the instinct to keep itself alive?”

“What if I can't ever be who you want me to be? What if I keep letting you down?”

“I’m feeling really hopeful about it, like maybe I actually have a chance to get better. To be happy. It’s funny, I just realized that my whole life, the whole time I’ve been trying to be perfect, I never once considered happiness as part of the equation. I guess it seemed so impossible I couldn’t even let myself fantasize about it. But now, I don’t know, things feel different somehow. Like impossible things might not be so impossible.”

“They said the doctors could tell from the scars.""Stop.""Scars can tell you how old the wound is.""Stop.""When I stopped going to school, they came and found me. They found me in the closet.""Sarah.”

“Shirley: "Christopher, would you like to tell Olivia what "F.I.N.E" means?"Christopher: "Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional"...Olivia: "But what if you really do feel fine?"Shirley: "Christopher, care to answer that?"Christopher: "Um, there's no such feeling as fine.”

“Do you remember? Do you remember the world before the poison?”

“All I know is I want you to be happy, and if I could do anything to give that to you, I would.”

“There is a whole other world with an entirely different version of me, a me that is not pretty, a me that no boys want, a me she would never talk to.”

“I wonder if anybody else feels this way, if anyone in here is as scared as I am. Are they as sad and angry and confused and ashamed? Is that even possible? Is it even possible for one building to hold all that pain?”

“I'd love to wrap myself inside your sadness and pretend it is mine”

“There is a picture of me in their heads, a picture of someone I don't know yet. She is not the chubby girl with the braces and bad perm. She is not the girl hiding in the bathroom at recess. She is someone new, a blank slate they have named beautiful. That is what I am now: beautiful, with this new body and face and hair and clothes. Beautiful, with this erasing of history.”

“Phones are only good for ordering pizza and telling someone you're running late”

“I said just let me try one more time and she said, "THAT'S ENOUGH, ISABEL," again, and she could just say it over and over and it would never get through my thick skull because I'm always wanting and wanting because nothing is ever enough you are never enough I am never enough I am never enough I AM NEVER ENOUGH.”