What do you think?
Rate this book


336 pages, Paperback
First published February 27, 2018
The thing about my diary is that I lied in it. I obscured the truth. I never told even the empty space around me the whole story. I was afraid someone would find it, read it, know me. I wanted them to know a different girl. A better one.
It’s impossible in a town like this. It’s impossible in any town. Girls disappear. Girls are brought to secret places to be used and nothing is done, because it’s how things are. Because they’re only girls.
“The things we wish for don’t happen. This is how things really go.”
“The court of public opinion moves much faster than the law.”
“(…) you matter. Your life matters. Every day, you count and you change the world by existing. You affect the people and the places around you with the ripples you send out into the universe. And when it’s hard to hold on to hope, when the light feels like it can’t keep burning, there’s a world of people behind you whom you’ve affected. They’re there and they have your back, even if you can’t see them.”

They targeted us because they thought we were weak. But even the weakest girl has power inside of her. She maybe just needs a little guidance to find it.
The way it took something good, something beautiful, and slowly ruined it without her knowing.
It's hard, when you're not a whole girl to begin with, to lose even more of yourself.
It takes a lot of things to make a girl, but breaking her? It only takes a few pretty words and a crooked smile.
I'd always imagined being wanted. Of someone loving me. Choosing me.
These are all the things that make a girl -- and it starts with just that one piece to put her back together again.
One of the factories, right on the river, is a brick behemoth. The age on it shows. Spray-painted tags, broken windows, padlocks and chains designed never to be cut or opened. Where there had to be a sign, an announcement of what this was, of what creation came from the hollow vastness of it, is now a darker patch of brick. Just a hint.
Once upon a time, there was.
That’s the theme of this town.
It’s a dangerous companion, loneliness, and it scares me now, as it takes my side by the river. I can’t last an eternity with no other friend.
She should be with her parents, and he should be with his daughter. But when the world breaks you into pieces, sometimes you find what’s left scattered among other people’s broken parts.
I just want to be a girl. All the parts of me that made me real. Maybe a lot of things make a girl, but I think being alive is the ơn I miss most
I wonder if I stay here because someone should. Because somebody should watch over where I am. Someone should remember me.
No one deserves to be forgotten
No one deserves to fade away
No one should come and go
And have no one know he/she was ever even here
No one deserves to disappear
I disappeared before I actually did. And now, I'm trapped here. Forgotten.
Even when the dark comes crashing through
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you're broken on the ground
You will be found

Since I've been here, I haven't seen the sunlight much. It doesn't matter, though. Sunlight can't make me warm anymore.
So how do I step in
Step into the sun
Step into the sun.
"Say it" I whisper. Noah shuts the closet and they're done here. "Say my fucking name" I scream after them
I'm waving through a window["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>
I tried to speak but nobody can hear
So I wait around for an answer to appear
While I'm watch, watch, watching people pass
I'm waving through a window
Can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me?