It could be why you’re still single.

Hmmm. What you’re saying is that you’ve never been kissed?” He picked at a string on the blanket under us.

My mom told me once that Wyatt loved her the way a boy will love his mother, but I loved her the way an artist loves another. Jo taught me what that meant.

Go to the Winter Dance with me.

Look at this one.” I picked up a small painting of a man with dark hair and a short, dark beard. He wore a loose shirt, cobalt blue, unbuttoned at the top, showing a prominent,...

I found I could only glance at him for tiny moments and then I had to look away. He was perfect enough to hurt my feelings for a long time, and I wanted to let...

Every moment of our lives we make choices. Most we don’t even know we’re making, they’re so dull or routine or automatic. Some are beyond explanation—like my mom choosing Wyatt’s memory over Dad and me.

I thought back to Meg’s advice about Hemingway sentences—simple declarative statements that showed the truth and distilled the meaning. My first attempt at that had been cynical and messed up. I gave it a go...

Leave my dad out of this.

He’s hurting and it’s not just the Quinn thing. It’s being away from you and wondering if you’re hurting, too. Or if you’re having too much fun to hurt. What he really needed was to...

Yeah, let’s go to the hotel. Grab your purse and I’ll find your coat.

There I’m only myself,” she’d said. Standing in the middle of masterpieces that only Jo had ever seen and touched, I knew what she meant.

I’ll never be able to give you smart answers about why we suffer, but I can come into your world and try to be some kind of help to you.

Most kids grow sullen and angry when they’re working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bull-headed strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a...

This is the time and these are the people and I’d give my right arm to be a light, a comfort, to them. I know you would, too. In whatever form it takes. Use these...

I like her just fine, but you should watch yourself around her. Tennyson is given to obsession, and her obsessions tend to run toward trouble. It’s kind of a Wyoming thing to push the whole...

Uncommon anxiety came to us in common hours when other people were doing mundane things like taking out the trash or checking their phones. But there was nothing to be done for this. We couldn’t...

Kavanagh has a smart mouth.

When I’m naked, I can see my heart beating.

You were that little girl.

Hearing my brother’s words coming out of Henry, this stranger in a strange town, made me feel wild with all the loss—wild and wired with no place to put those feelings.

I needed out. The Jeep wasn’t fast enough. I shut it down, grabbed the keys and started running like a bear was at my heels. I couldn’t even see Henry anymore through my tears so...

My brother died because someone was jealous.

And we want to understand them better.

I recognized Meg’s swirly handwriting and crooked my index finger into the side of the envelope to rip it open. There was no letter. Just a picture. A picture of Meg holding a picture of...

With a damp palm, I turned the knob and cracked open the door. She was asleep in her freshly made bed. I can’t explain how relieved I felt for this simple mercy. She was here...

Promise?” Well, that genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing her back in.

It was the first time I discovered that some girls actually sneak out of the house during slumber parties and meet up with boys. I would’ve never known if I hadn’t gone to the bathroom...

Were you not aware high school dances suck? That they always have sucked and they will continue sucking as long as the world turns?

It was an oddly satisfying idea to feel bereft as I left my mother this time. We only feel bereft when we’re deprived of something meaningful.

Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts.” He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom...

I haven’t told you that today, Meg, because I don’t know.

His room was dark until he switched on his desk lamp. I sat on the floor next to his bed and watched him counting clothes and considering shoes. He seemed so boyish right then—like he...

I’m not sure about all the particulars that led to this moment. Do I believe life is a series of dots to be connected…or that no one can outrun destiny…or that all roads lead to...

We bumped into other silent lines of kids going in the same direction. We looked like we were much younger and our lines were headed to the cafeteria or recess or the carpool line. Or...

Just to be clear, if I, like, leaned over and whispered your name in your ear, still nothing?

My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. She’d set her coffee down, making a noise that made me look her way. I’d begun to notice her less and less often, like her colors were...

All of the emotions that hit people at times like these, all of them, were coursing through us both like a secret we couldn’t tell. Because if we said everything we were thinking and feeling...

It wouldn’t be real love if there weren’t the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn’t choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That’s why there’s evil in this...

Trusty steed.

Her problem is with pretty,” Tennyson said. “She thinks I’ll need all these dresses in college. Like I would ever in a billion years pledge a sorority. I’ll pack a few of these to be...

Is that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

Okay, news flash. Jealousy is not something I enjoy. I hadn’t felt it much before. But I’d also never been in love. And I’d never been 3,300 miles away from the girl I loved while...

Dear God, Meg, you’re glowing. Sit and tell me about this boy. He let you borrow his jacket? That’s so adorable.” Instead, I came off the high of that day by writing a letter to...

In my mind, I saw a string stretching from Henry’s heart at Quiet Waters to my heart. It was taut and it vibrated with Henry’s worries and fears and I felt them all.Deeply. I felt...

New rules—we needed new rules. No one opens the main doors but me. No one leaves the property without me. No one goes outside without letting me know. I had these horrible images in my...

On the best nights, he’d appear outside the bookstore window and wait for me to unlock the door. He usually hadn’t had time to shower between doing things with cattle and horses and coming to...

I finally understood why so much monkey business happened in the backs of buses. Put us in close proximity, with wheels spinning under us, and nothing to do but wait, we’re going to start thinking...

It’s the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or defensiveness. But not kindness. You can’t hide it. And people either are...

For a second, I stared at the map of her veins just under the surface of her thin skin. It was like her body was trying to become diaphanous. Instead of getting harder and stronger...