Ellen Hopkins

Faces...I...don't...know...the real...me

It was the exact oppositefor me. At first all Iwanted was sex with her,but soon I wanted more.More sex, yes, in unusualplaces, and all different kinds.But that wasn__ all. I wantedher to fill the empty spacesleft by a father who neveronce praised me, __riends_ whoused me, an ice princess momwho raised me with glass kisses.

Aloneeverything changes.Some might call it distorted realitybut it's exactly the place I need to be.

We used to do coke, till "Just Say No" put the stuff out of reach. Now it's crank. Meth. The monster. It's a bitch on the body, but damn do you fly.

Sometimes,you don't wake up.But if you happento, you know thingswill never bethe same.

...Every word an author writes causes ripples, like tossing a stone into a pond. And you don't know where they'll go, or who they'll touch, or when they might come back to you. I think everything you do is kind of like that, too.

A daughter is a rainbow - a curve of light through scattered mist that lifts the spirit with her prismatic presence. Is a shadow - a reminder of something brilliant ducking out of sight, too easily drawn away. She is an aria, swelling within the concern chamber, an echo reverberating across a miniature sea. She is a secret, whispered, a hint of what we cannot know until it finds us. She is a sliver of her father, a shard of her mother. A daughter is a promise, kept.

The Screamingflashed me back to a timewhen mom and dad were still togetherif you could call miles apart together.

Tying the know means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.

The things they say!A truck driver would blush.I would never talk that wayto Trevor he walks on water.I want him to think I do too.For a while, he did, or at leasthe pretended to.I did things with TrevorI wouldn't dare to confessto anyone__hings I didn'tknow anyone did.But he wanted me to,so I did. That's what you dowhen you love someone,right?

I love the way she feels inthe curve of my arm. I loveher unpretentious beauty,her intelligence, her nerve.But could I ever love her?The concept of falling in loveis completely foreign, somethingI can__ bring myself to accept. Her hair pillows my cheek and her hand on my leg is warm. I care about you, Conner, and I hate to see you hurting. I want to respond but can__find the pretty words I need.

This time when we kiss, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel it in my heart. And I realize love isn't about sex. It's about connection.

Yes, it takes two to dance. But somebody has to lead.

What we strive for, ultimately, is love. You won't find real love because you're beautiful on the outside. It is drawn to inner beauty. Spend your energy crafting that, and you will know true love.

Perfection is a ridiculous goal because there is no such thing. Real beauty is what you are inside.

It is hard to believe that something that seems so permanent was once so different. Change. I guess that really is one thing you can count on...

Nobody seems to care that with every push to live up to their expectations, my own dreams vaporize.

Can a dream be wrong? Aren't dreams God's way of telling you things?