See, the thing about that word, Sharkey, the F-word, is that sometimes I make that word do too much work. I mean, I say that word as if it clearly articulates what I’m really feeling. And it doesn’t. It’s a shortcut.

One of my roommates, Rafael, he's an expert on monsters. Not that he talks about them. I can just tell. People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a word.

What is it with you and that book?"
Rafael laughed. "We have a personal relationship.

This is my problem. I want other people to tell me how they feel. But I'm not so sure I want to return the favor.

I had learned to hide what I felt. No, that's not true. There was no learning involved. I had been born knowing how to hide what I felt.

Senior year. And then life. Maybe that's the way it worked. High school was just a prologue to the real novel. Everybody got to write you -- but when you graduated, you got to write yourself. At graduation you got to collect your teacher's pens and your parents' pens and you got your own pen. And you could do all the writing. Yeah. Wouldn't that be sweet?