Laurie Halse Anderson

The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

I knew I wouldn't get an invitation. I would be lucky to get an invitation to my own funeral, with my reputation.

David Petrakis is my hero.

I almost tell them right then and there. Tears flood my eyes. They noticed I've been trying to draw. They noticed. I try to swallow the snowball in my throat. This isn't going to be easy. I'm sure they suspect I was at the party. Maybe they even heard about me calling the cops. But I want to tell them everything as we sit there by our plastic Christmas tree while the Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer video plays.

We lived in a different house then, a smaller house. Mom worked at the jewelry counter and was home after school. Dad had a nicer boss and talked all the time about buying a boat. I believed in Santa Claus.

It is getting harder to talk. My throat is always sore, my lips raw.

"I was the only person who talked to you on the first day of school, and now you're blowing me off because I'm a little depressed? Isn't that what friends are for, to help each other out in bad times?" Me: "For what?"

When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know

NO!—I'm not really here, I'm definitely back at Rachel's, crimping my hair and gluing on fake nails, and he smells like beer and mean and he hurts me hurts me hurts me and gets up and zips his jeans
and smiles.

and I hate winter. It starts too early and ends too late. No one likes it. Why does anyone stay here?