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161 " It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say. Mr. "
― Laurie Halse Anderson , Speak
162 " I get out of bed and take down the mirror. I put it in the back of my closet, facing the wall. OUR "
163 " I have survived. I am here. "
164 " I don't know what I'm doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. "
165 " My goal is to go home and take a nap. "
166 " She wants to hear all about our day, how long I’ve lived in town, and asks little sideways questions about my parents, so she can figure out if I’m the kind of friend she wants for her daughter. I don’t mind. I think it’s nice that she cares. "
167 " My job is to nod or shake my head, to say “I know what you mean,” when I don’t, and “That is so unfair,” when it isn’t. "
168 " Every single day, someone asks Mr. Stetman why we have to learn algebra. You can tell this causes him great personal pain. Mr. Stetman loves algebra. He is poetic about it, in an integral-number sort of way. He talks about algebra the way some guys talk about their cars. Ask him why algebra and he launches into a thousand and one stories why algebra. None of them makes sense. "
169 " It is a pretend question, one he asked so he could give the answer. I relax. This is like when my father complains about his boss. The best thing to do is to stay awake and blink sympathetically. "
170 " Mr. Neck writes on the board again: “DEBATE: America should have closed her borders in 1900.” That strikes a nerve. Several nerves. I can see kids counting backward on their fingers, trying to figure when their grandparents or great-grandparents were born, when they came to America, if they would have made the Neck Cut. When they figure out they would have been stuck in a country that hated them, or a place with no schools, or a place with no future, their hands shoot up. They beg to differ with Mr. Neck’s learned opinion. "
171 " I bet they’d be divorced by now if I hadn’t been born. I’m sure I was a huge disappointment. I’m not pretty or smart or athletic. I’m just like them—an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can’t believe we have to keep playacting until I graduate. It’s a shame we can’t just admit that we have failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives. "
172 " Principal Principal stormed in yesterday, smelling pleasure. His mustache moved up and down, a radar sweep for all things unruly. An unseen hand turned off the radio as he crossed the threshold, and bags of potato chips vanished, leaving the faint scent of salt to mix with vermilion oil paint and wet clay. "
173 " Mr. Freeman says fear is a great place to begin art. "
174 " I can't stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone else, someone I don't even know. "
175 " He says a million things without saying a word. I make a note to study David Petrakis. I have never heard a more eloquent silence. "
176 " My bed is sending out serious nap rays. "
177 " I would be lucky to get an invitation to my own funeral, with my reputation. "
178 " Mom closes her eyes. Her skin is a flat gray color, like underwear that has been washed so many times it's about to fall apart. I feel bad that I didn't fold more shirts for her. "
179 " But they are so cute. And they cheer on our boys, inciting them to violence and, we hope, victory. These are our role models — the Girls Who Have It All. I bet none of them ever stutter or screw up or feel like their brains are dissolving into marshmallow fluff. They all have beautiful lips, carefully out- lined in red and polished to a shine. "
180 " There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. "