To be the best, you have to give everything all the time, then you have to give some more...
The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.
She’s packing at least five grand worth of orthodontia, but has great shoes.
She offered herself to the big, bad wolf and didn't scream when he took the first bite.
She looks like a china doll, observed Grandfather as we departed. I will break just as easily, I muttered.
Mandatory community service seemed like hypocrisy,
It was like looking at a knot, knowing it was a knot, but not knowing how to untie it. I had no map for this life.
I would never be popular. I didn't want to be; I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.
I turned the page in Slaughterhouse Five, a forbidden book at Belmont because we were too young to read about soldiers swearing and bombs dropping and bodies blowing up and war sucking.
I sniff again and wipe my eyes on my arm. The bruises are vivid, but they will fade.
I smile and play pretend through the Morning Show in the kitchen.
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 knew I wouldn't get an invitation. I would be lucky to get an invitation to my own funeral, with my reputation.
I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?
How could filling in a bunch of blanks and writing a fluffy essay about the 'moment of significance' in my life let them know if I was good enough to go here?
Apologies mean nothing if you don't mean it.
It's harder to take a punch than to give one.
The only thing that helped me breathe was opening a book
We swore sacred oaths to be strong and to save the planet and to be friends forever.
This is how terrorists get started, this kind of harmless fun.