When You Reach Me

by Rebecca Stead

I snorted. Or I tried to snort, anyway. I’m not exactly sure how, though people in books are always doing it.

It’s crazy the things a person can pretend not to notice.

But I knew I could never draw like that, for the same reason I couldn’t do Jimmy’s V-cut or get my Main Street diagrams to look good.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It’s like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to. It

“Well, it’s simple to love someone,” she said. “But it’s hard to know when you need to say it out loud.”

Common sense is just a name for the way we’re used to thinking.