I love that blurry place where life’s transitions are made without you even knowing it.

The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the Pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn't do in the Pants --- like picking your nose.

Shy” was the sympathetic interpretation she got from older people. “Snotty” was the interpretation she got from people her own age.

But then she hadn’t just learned to love this summer – she had also learned how to need.

She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time

When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.

She closed her eyes. "I didn't know that. i didn't know anything. It scares me the things I told myself. But I would have told myself almost anything, because I wanted to believe him." "Why?" "Because I wanted to be with you.