Milena's eyes seemed to go hot and heavy. Praise made her heartsick; she was so unused to it, and needed it so badly.

‎"She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet smiles.

I didn't begin life hating my grandmother. Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.

It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody.

I called his broken promise heartbreaking, and he called it growing up. Oh, that’s mature—blame it on maturity.

It feels like the world is folding up around me, like origami paper, and I’m trapped inside of its breathless center.

My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.

Stop using him, and start protecting him. I know he thinks he doesn't need it, but sometimes he does. Sometimes we all do.

I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.

Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work.

I love him in ways that I can’t explain to other people. They don’t understand… it’s not their fault.

I reached up with my finger and traced the scar over my eyebrow, remembering when that was the greatest hurt I'd ever known.

I think that's every unresolved person's dream, to wake up one day and know what they want to do the rest of their life.

How did I get to be a grown-up? At times, I find myself still sitting on the hillside, plotting revenge against the adult world.

Growing up, I never felt deprived. I was always happy. It seems only lately I've started seeing everything I didn't have.