So you should remember that, when you’re thinking about what other people can deal with. Maybe it’s not so bad.

Maybe the truth was, it shouldn’t be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something’s difficult to come by, you’ll do that much more to make sure it’s even harder–if not impossible–to lose.

After all, it’s all kinds of things that make up a life, right? The big, like falling in love and spending time with your family, and the little….like blow drying your hair, applying concealer, and cursing those magazine inserts. It all counts. It has to.

If something doesn’t work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don’t just throw it away. Everything can’t be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give something the little nudge it needs.

It’s not that I believe everything happens for a reason. It’s just that… I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It’s the universe’s way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It’s how life is.

It’s funny how one summer can change everything. It must be something about the heat and the smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle, asphalt sizzling after late-day thunderstorms, the steam rising while everything drips around it. Something about long, lazy days and whirring air conditioners and bright plastic flip-flops from the drugstore thwacking down...

Rogerson,” I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, “where would I find the pelagic zone?””In the open sea,” he said. “Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints.

I’d heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. “We can’t heal you at Evergreen”, the very somber voiceover said. “But we...

You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.

You know the minute you stop thinking about it, it’ll happen.

is such a boy question.

It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.

Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is.

Do you even realize how happythe average teenage girl would be in your shoes? I have a credit card. We’reat the mall. I want to buy you things. It’s like adolescent nirvana.”- Cora

If someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don’t change because of it. It’s just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.

You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It’s not overrated. There’s a reason for all those songs.

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater…The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that’s the key. It’s like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has...

Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once.

I would miss Colby, but it wasn’t going anywhere. All the more reason why I should.

Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like...

Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

You can’t just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can’t plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.

He wasn’t the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion...

Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground solid beneath us. But then something crossed his face, a thought, a hesitation, and he shifted slightly. Not now. Not yet. It was something I’d done so often – weighing what I could afford...

Isn’t it weird? The way you remember things when it’s gone.

You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can’t fake, no matter how hard you try

Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.

for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.

I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close. I wasn’t shiny and charming like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or smart and dynamic like my friends. That’s the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.

There was something really great about being able to put something out into the world—a song, an introduction, even my voice—and let people make of it what they wanted. I didn’t have to worry about how I looked, or if the image of me people had fit who I really was.

I’m sorry,” I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn’t eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at...

Finally he asks, “What if that’s not enough? What if I need something else?”And she replies, “Whatever you need, I will find a way to get it to you. I will give you the moon, and more.

I understand that you are under a lot of pressure and that it’s hard being a bride. That is all well and good. But it does not, ever, entitle you to be rude, selfish, uncaring, and generally obnoxious to me or Haven or anyone else. We’ve been very patient with you because we’re your family...

What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed there, regardless.

Earlier in the summer, I’d found the syllabi to a couple of the courses I was taking at Defriese in the fall, and I’d hunted down a few of the texts at the U bookstore, figuring it couldn’t hurt to acquaint myself with the material.

School was my solace, and studying let me escape, allowing me to live a thousand vicarious lives.

The girl in the tight black dress was passing by us now, eyeing Wes and walking entirely too slowly. “Hi,” she said, and he nodded at her but didn’t reply. Knew it, I thought.Honestly,” I said.What?”Come on. You have to admit, it’s sort of ridiculous.”What is?”Now that I had to define it, I found myself...

Maybe a marriage, like a life, isn’t only about the Big Moments, whether they be bad or good. Maybe it’s all the small things–like being guided slowly forward, surely, day after day– that stretch out to strengthen even the most tenuous bond.

If June was the beginning of a hopeful summer, and July the juice middle, August was suddenly feeling like the bitter end.

I felt tears prick my eyes as I looked down at the model again, looking at that girl and boy on the curb. Forever in that place, together.

If you have just one person believe in you, you’ll always find your way

It’s hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like...

There’s a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when it’s about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby...

It was like discovering that some part of you wasn’t yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn’t claim.

Why don’t you ever wait a second and see what I’m planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance.

You did listen.” He sat back, nodding his head. “Okay, then. Now tell me what you really thought.””I told you. It was interesting.””Interesting,” he said, “is not a word.””Since when?””It’s a placeholder. Something you use when you don’t want to say something else.” He leaned a little closer to me. “Look, if you’re worried about...

So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream. But it was even worse when you knew in that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn’t even budge.

But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything, if only because I had no idea how to respond to such an overture. If my experience with friends was sparse, what I knew about boys- other than a competitors for grades or class rank- was nonexistent

All those clean, fresh starts had made me forget what it was like, until now, to be messy and honest and out of control. To be real.