Paula Stokes

Sometimes being poor means having to choose between your principles and your survival.

It__ not right that some people have so much and others have so little.

Monsters don__ get happy endings.

Once I accepted the fact that I was bad luck, I shied away from group activities. And groups. And activities. I started spending a lot of time in my room, tucked under my covers reading books. There__ only so much damage a book can do, and I wasn__ worried about hurting myself. Accidentally hurting yourself is way better than hurting other people.Sure, I got lonely for a while. But getting invited to slumber parties just wasn__ worth the stress of wondering if I might accidentally burn down the house with my flat iron or be the only survivor of a freak sleepover massacre. And loneliness is just like everything else__f you endure it long enough, you get used to it.

There__ nothing abnormal about loneliness.

How do you make me smile when it seems like there__ nothing in the whole world to smile about?

Sobs force their way out of my throat. I feel like I__ trapped in a disaster movie where everything is shriveling into darkness and ash. Sunflowers are being uprooted. Puppies are being trampled. Whole cities are crumbling to dust.

Time doesn__ heal anything. It__ like drinking. The best it can do is help you forget, if you__e lucky.

I remember the big gaping hole left by my dad__ absence in the months following the accident. He__ been the one who went to my parent-teacher conferences, the one who taught me mnemonics to memorize the Great Lakes and the Earth__ atmospheres. Whenever I did something silly, my dad always made me feel better by telling me a story from the firehouse about someone who had done something even sillier. Sometimes you don__ realize all the things a person does for you until they aren__ there to do them anymore.

Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost was completely full of shit.

To us, reality is just raw footage: Unclear. Desultory. Too shocking or not quite shocking enough. It__ ironic that making something more real involves making it less real, but Gideon always says people don__ want real. They want the idea of real, which involves production.

Emotions I__e been working hard to hold back all summer start to spill out of me as I pull Elliott__ mouth toward my own. I__ so eager and impatient that our noses bump and teeth knock together before our lips slide into place. The frigid water is still lapping at my legs, but I can__ feel it anymore. My entire body is flush with heat, with desire. If it weren__ for the faintest hint of dance music from the clearing, I__ think that the two of us were completely alone.I wish the two of us were completely alone.

The world is full of holes and uneven seams, wrinkled places that you can__ make smooth, no matter how hard you try.

Some people think they can just decree that everything will be fine. The world doesn__ work like that. I__ not sure the world gives a crap about anyone__ promises, well-meaning or otherwise. Sometimes the Universe just takes what it wants.

Maybe I could dole out the truth in tiny pieces that, once assembled, would make a picture that resembled a reality in which I hadn__ done anything wrong.

The truth doesn't get you very far on the streets, or in a group home, or even in high school. That's probably why the idea of Liars, Inc. appealed to me. Everybody lies. You might as well get paid for it.

I remember a time when all I wanted was a gun and to learn how to use it. I thought a gun would make me feel safe. I thought a gun would make me feel powerful. But right now I just feel . . . heavy. Like I live in this world of death and destruction and I__l never escape alive.

You have more power than you think. Be careful what you do with it.