Sometimes I think people take reality for granted.

I didn't have the luxury of taking reality for granted. And I wouldn't say I hated people who did, because that's just about everyone. I didn't hate them. They didn't live in my world.

But that never stopped me from wishing I lived in theirs.

Believing something existed and then finding out it didn't was like reaching the top of the stairs and thinking there was one more step.

The first thing I noticed about East Shoal High School was that it didn't have a bike rack. You know a school is run by stuck-up sons of bitches when it doesn't even have a bike rack.

I shoved Erwin behind the blocky green shrubs lining the school's front walk and stepped back to make sure the tires and handlebars were hidden. I didn't expect anyone to steal, touch, or notice him, since his rusty diarrhea color made people subconsciously avert their eyes, but I felt better knowing he was out of harm's way.

Did you meet your soul mate? That always happens on the first day of school, right?'

'Oh God, Charlie, she's letting you read again! You went straight to the paranormal section, didn't you?

He fought, 'stigma of mental illness', all his life but refused to marry off his daughter to a cured schizophrenic, instead he married off his first daughter to a gangster, second to a fraud banker, third to an incurable Casanova and fourth to a cured cancer patient.