If you’ve never been close to death, life probably seems pretty solid. The truth is, it can be destroyed in an instant, like a photograph. One moment your world is slick and shiny. But then the Universe crumples everything into a ball. And even if you don’t get crushed, if you fight to straighten things out, your life will never be the same again.

— Paula Stokes

I get it. Traveling halfway across the world to run into the boy you grew up with, getting back together after years apart—that’s an epic fucking fairy tale. I don’t blame you for being seduced by it. I guess I just thought what we had was better. You know, because it was real.

— Paula Stokes

I go back for seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths, when it’s good. Just not if it means some guy gets to put a leash on me.

— Paula Stokes

I laugh as an unfamiliar feeling envelops me. I think it might be happiness.

— Paula Stokes

I remember a time when all I wanted was a gun and to learn how to use it. I thought a gun would make me feel safe. Furthermore, I thought a gun would make me feel powerful. But right now I just feel. . . Heavy. Like I live in this world of death and destruction and I’ll never escape alive.

— Paula Stokes

I remember the big gaping hole left by my dad’s absence in the months following the accident. He’d been the one who went to my parent-teacher conferences, the one who taught me mnemonics to memorize the Great Lakes and the Earth’s atmospheres. Whenever I did something silly, my dad always made me feel better by telling me a story from the firehouse about someone who had done something even sillier. Sometimes you don’t realize all the things a person does for you until they aren’t there to do them anymore.

— Paula Stokes

I think about the way BAZ teased me earlier, how he wanted to know what it felt like to have someone who would do anything for me. Maybe it sounds comforting to know there is a person out there who would risk his life to protect you—a person who would back off when you asked and then come to you when you changed your mind. Especially when that person is as kind and decent as Jesse. The truth is, it’s terrifying. It’s just one more opportunity for me to be a monster.

— Paula Stokes

It’s not right that some people have so much and others have so little.

— Paula Stokes

I’ve read so many stories online about how tragedy brings people together, how hard times encourage bravery and sacrifice, how a crisis can turn ordinary folks into heroes. But what about the opposite, when something horrible happens, and it strips us bare, exposing weaknesses we didn’t even know we had. What about when tragedy makes people worse?

— Paula Stokes

Jesse and I might as well be caught in a snow globe. Tonight is just a single perfect moment trapped in glass. Tomorrow our protective bubble will be shattered.

— Paula Stokes