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.

I think she hoped her voice would somehow keep him alive, would clot the blood.

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

People always love people more when they’re dead.

IS IT POSSIBLE for a hug to peel back skin of time, the toughened and raw bits, the irritated and irritating dry spots, the parts that bleed?

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?