Whenever I hear the word danger, I see Marlena and me staring into the mouth of that U-Haul in the winter hour between twilight and dark. Two girls full of plans, fifteen and seventeen years old in the middle of nowhere. Stop, I want to tell us. Stay right where you are, together. Don’t move. But we will. We always do. The clock’s already running.”
-- Cat (Narration)  (Part 1, Section One paragraph 10)

Importance: This quote sums up an essential quality of the narrative, and of the situation of its narrator and protagonist. Cat's story is essentially her struggle to put her past, and in particular her relationship with Marlena, into appropriate perspective. The quote here, however, defines the core obstacle she faces in that struggle - she wants to hold onto the best of that relationship, to what she wants it to mean in her life, as opposed to recognizing just how damaging it truly was...