94 was a good year to be twelve. Star Wars still had two more years as Box Office King, cartoons were still hand-drawn, and the Disney "D" still looked like a backwards "G." Words like "Columbine," "Al-Qaeda" and "Y2K" were not synonymous with "terror," and 9-1-1 was an emergency number instead of a date. At twelve years old, summer still mattered. Monarch caterpillars still crawled beneath every milkweed leaf. Dandelions (or "wishes" as Mara called them) were flowers instead of pests. And divorce was still considered a tragedy. Before Mara, carnivals didn't make me sick.

— Jake Vander-Ark

A multitude of harlequin lifeforms bobbed and twirled and played in the depths of the Atlantic. Pink cucumbers with thorny backs. Algae. Starfish. Annelids with simple brains and a hundred toes. Sponges—like yellow, swollen hands—sucked in water and pushed out oxygen. Most amusing were the mysterious buggers who had no likeness on the previous earth; tiny beasts with exotic exoskeletons engraved with deep grid-like patterns, snails with horns, and slithering plants that looked like magenta weeping willows.

— Jake Vander-Ark

Any earthly production would have been cancelled at the slightest suggestion of rain, but this was William’s Stage—it was William’s call—and if the children danced and the congregation remained transfixed, the show would go on.

— Jake Vander-Ark

Brain-like in function and speed, the internet connected over one-third of the global population. Three million searches every minute; one-hundred-trillion emails every year; more Facebook users than people in North America, all with personal photos, videos, apps, and chats. There were dozens of dating sites, an immersive universe called 2nd Life that boasted a country-sized GDP, a slew of viruses, obnoxious advertising, more than a billion photos of naked women, and seventy-two hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. This was the environment where the friendship flourished.

— Jake Vander-Ark

But Hannah's friend didn’t understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn’t understand Hannah’s stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn’t understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn’t hurt, didn’t cry, didn’t spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah’s best ideas—sometimes her only ideas—were buried beneath the skin.

— Jake Vander-Ark

But in the end, black can never be white, one plus one must always equal two, and Mara Lynn was a normal little girl.

— Jake Vander-Ark

Every time I think about that girl, my mind commits a sin.

— Jake Vander-Ark

…girls were like poems: weird, incomprehensible and boring, but those “in the know” assured me that they were beautiful.

— Jake Vander-Ark

His stubble was cut smooth. He smelled of aftershave, dry deodorant and sex-tarnished bedsheets. Those eyes--Grey, strong, inlaid beneath a firm brow that displayed such hate and SUCH love--they seduced her every time... but not tonight.

— Jake Vander-Ark

It was unmatched life experience that bestowed in her eyes the sultry gleam that separates women from girls. Although she viewed her “life experience” like bruises on a peach, men of all ages still found ways to see past the indications of damaged goods long enough to offer her a drink. Hell, it was less than an hour ago that one such man called her “gothic perfection” and cried on her shoulder. Her boyfriend agreed that a crazy life can “grow a girl up quick”; it was only last November that she turned seventeen.

— Jake Vander-Ark