Sarah Dessen

I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.

What was the name of Pygmalion's sister?

Now I felt like I was drifting, sucked down by an undertow, and too far out to swim back to the shore.

Sitting in front of my parents' house as he kissed me goodnight: Which two planets are almost identical in size?

Caitlin, she'd say, her voice dark and serious. I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.

It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.

And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice.

For two hours I'd felt myself stretching tighter and tighter, like a rubber band pulled to the point of snapping. And now, I could feel the smaller, weaker part of myself beginning to fray, tiny bits giving way before the big break.

Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't under­stand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me.All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light,to drown.

In physics, I sprung on him as we sat in the Taco Bell drive-through, what does the capital letter W stand for?

Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stop it. There's just so much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up....

I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.