Pain came in waves at EAGLES; you could see it shimmering and hovering at the periphery of all we did, like the horizon’s visible heat, rising up from the street.”
-- The Author (Narration) (Part 1 – School)

Importance: This quote is taken from a section from the book's opening chapter, in which the author describes her experiences while working as a teaching volunteer at what might be described as a non-traditional school for young people who identified as LGBTQ, and who did not fit, for one reason or another, with the processes and agendas of the regular school system. The pain she is referring to is that of the young people she is teaching, pain perhaps associated with bad school experiences, bad family lives, or bad experiences in general while trying to live as trans. Her consideration of such aspects of pain, her empathy with it, and her desire to help young trans people move past it...