The way you're singing in your sleep The way you look before you leap The strange illusions that you keep You don't know But I'm noticing The way your touch turns into arcs The way you slide into the dark The beating of my open heart You don't know But I'm noticing

Readers embrace all kinds of characters as long as they are written with emotional truth.

aloof, adj. It has always been my habit, ever since junior high school, to ask that question: “What are you thinking?” It is always an act of desperation, and I keep on asking, even though I know it will never work the way I want it to.

My pride shut me up, my hurt shut me down, and together they ganged up on my hope and let her get away.

I barely notice colors unless I taste them. Not the yellows or the greens. I taste the deeper blues. The darker reds.

No, really,' I said. 'I think she's great. And I honestly like her about twenty more times now than I did when we were dating. But love needs to have a future. And Sofia and I don't have a future. We've just had a good time sharing the present, that's all.

This is the hard part about having best friends that I feel no attachment to -- I don't give them any benefit of the doubt. And being best friends is always about the benefit of the doubt.