Instantly I regretted my decision. It was one of those times when you hear yourself saying something, and it seems like a good idea at the time, but once you blurt it out you can hardly believe it's you speaking. What was I thinking?

Instantly I regretted my decision. It was one of those times when you hear yourself saying something, and it seems like a good idea at the time, but once you blurt it out you can hardly believe it's you speaking. What was I thinking?

Elrond,” Bruce said. “The Council of Elrond. From Lord of the Rings. It’s the meeting where they decide to destroy the One Ring.”“Jesus,” Annie said. “None of you got laid in high school, did you?

Lover’s Lane is so narrow only unicycles can travel down it. My high school teachers didn’t call me “The Babe Ruth of the Bicycle” for nothing. It’s too bad they didn’t call me that, because it was accurate.

I reached for his other hand, which he quickly accepted and I pulled him up into a hug. I didn't know what the other kids in the room were thinking or saying or doing. And I didn't care. I had Jamie in my arms, and that was all the mattered.

The only way, I thought to myself, that this could get any weirder would be if it turns out he has that dead body's head on ice where in the basement, some ready for transplantation onto Cindy Crawford's body as soon as it becomes available.

I reached for his other hand, which he quickly accepted and I pulled him up into a hug. I didn't know what the other kids in the room were thinking or saying or doing. And I didn't care. I had Jamie in my arms, and that was all the mattered.

They had become a fixed star in the shifting firmament of the high school's relationships, the acknowledged Romeo and Juliet. And she knew with sudden hatefulness that there was one couple like them in every white suburban high school in America.

You need to be more careful, or you could hurt yourself."Right. Thank you, Mrs. Detweiler. I never would have come to that conclusion by myself. I was planning on incorporating a backflip into my next walk across the classroom but on second thought...

I recognized Meg’s swirly handwriting and crooked my index finger into the side of the envelope to rip it open. There was no letter. Just a picture. A picture of Meg holding a picture of me. The word HOME echoed through my body like a rifle shot.

Because isn’t that what eternity is? It’s your own high school. Where the good girls are always good, the stupid boys are always stupid, the marching band always plays some lame tribute to whatever Broadway musical was big twenty-five years ago...

Being kind is one of the hardest thing to be in high school because you're so terrified of being cut down yourself that you're always on your guard. But don't be like that. Be kind and you will be truly different. A standout. Unique and happy.

We were supposed to be an English literature class, but Miss Nesbitt used literature to teach real life. She said she didn't have time to teach us like a regular English teacher--we were too far behind. Instead, she taught us the world through literature.

I didn't really spend much time with anyone my own age during high school because I believed my true calling would be representing New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, and if that didn't work out, I could always fall back on becoming an Olympic pole vaulter.

It was about how men walk into a forest afraid because they know all the things that can happen. They might wake the noisy birds and cause chaos. But kids come into the trees and see the magic. They climb them and see stars that the men were too afraid to see.