Tara Kelly

Monday nights always brought in the worst kind of crazy. Tonight that crazy came in the form of Paul Cross, town hermit. One of them, anyway. This was the Pacific Northwest.

Normal is an ideal. But it__ not reality. Reality is brutal, it__ beautiful, it__ every shade between black and white, and it__ magical. Yes, magical. Because every now and then, it turns nothing into something.

If you like someone, you tell the truth because that, to me, is respect. If you hate someone, you tell them the truth because what do you have to lose?

If only I could freeze this moment, this feeling, because right now, nothing else mattered. I was f***ing flying.

Dave walked closer to me, his dark eyes combing my every move. "Do you always hold your guitar like that?"I dropped my pick. "Do you always shop at Hot Topic?

All I know is I make sense to me- it's other people who seem complicated.

Why was it considered normal for a girl to live for fashion and makeup, but not car engines or bugs? And what about sports fanatics? My mom had a boyfriend who would flip out if he missed even a minute of a football game. Wouldn't that be what doctors considered autistic behavior?

Sometimes in the winter, when the fog rolled in and silenced the waves, it felt as if death had its fingers around my neck. Fingers like frostbitten twigs that made me ache inside.