Long Way Down

by Jason Reynolds

but if the blood inside you is on the inside of someone else, you never want to see it on the outside of them.

Even he knew better than to know anything.

ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES They weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow.

I know you’re young, gotta get it out, but just remember, when you’re walking in the nighttime, make sure the nighttime ain’t walking into you.

How do you tell water ain’t nothing funny about drowning?

AND YOU KNOW it’s weird to know a person you don’t know and at the same time not know a person you know, you know?

How do you small-talk your father when “dad” is a language so foreign that whenever you try to say it, it feels like you got a third lip and a second tongue?