14 Quotes by Kayla Rae Whitaker

My drug of choice at eighteen: the quiet devouring of boys in my head.

Children learn it. Boys, but more often, and more closely, girls. When girls learn it, they learn it for the rest of their lives, inventing two separate planes on which they exist – the life of the surface, presented for others, and the life forever lived on the inside, the one that owns you.

You know, the voiceover continues, it would be nice if we were defined, ultimately, by the people and places we loved. Good things. But at the end of the day, there’s the reality that we’re not. Does the good stuff really have the weight that the weird stuff does? What makes the deeper impact – all the ridges and gathers – on who we are? Do we have a choice?

The less I could do, the more I wanted. Wanted things I couldn’t have and I wanted things I couldn’t even think up yet, but I could feel myself wanting. And that feeling, it’s like itching. Like to drive you crazy.” She shakes her head slightly. “I just wanted and wanted and wanted. You ever felt that way?” “Yes,” I tell her. “I have.” I feel something warm light my chest. It’s maybe the first time in my life that my mother has put something into the right words for me.

Your life is the people who fill it,” Mel says. “And nothing’s good without them.