The problem is not that I don't love my mother and father. The problem is that I don't know how to love them.

I wasn't big on family gatherings. Too many intimate strangers. I smiled a lot, but really I never knew what to say.

How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?

It felt like there was a whole world living inside her. I didn't know anything about that world.

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone's hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.

He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he'd rather be kissing boys. That's exactly what he said. I didn't know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to be Dante and it I was going to be his friend, I would just have to learn to be okay with it.