I'd always thought telling the truth to other people was hard, but maybe that was a snap compared to telling the truth to yourself. Sometimes we just refused to know what we knew.

A person shows signs of clutching on too fast, of being needy, of not hearing the word "no," of jealousy, of guarding you and your freedom. But the signs can be so small they skitter right past you. Sometimes they dance past, looking satiny, something you should applaud. Someone's jealousy can make you feel good. Special. But it's not even about you. It's about a hand that is already gripping. It's about their need, circling around your throat

Rejection, though--it could make the loss of someone you weren't even that crazy about feel gut wrenching and world ending.

I know parental embarrassment usually stops somewhere at fifteen, but he just kept on giving me good reasons.

This was what happened after you'd been together with someone a long time. You loved that it was old and worn and comfy, but sometimes it was old and worn and comfy.

Stereotypes are fast and easy, but they are lies, and the truth takes its time.

Just that, is one of those uncommon moments, those times when you don't wish for something else, for even one thing to be different; when you have no other needs or worries, where your insides are calm, and everything you were ever restless about, anything that had ever given you angst, is quieted to stillness. No steel ball in your chest, no breathless fear. No blue numbness of nearly passing out, no nagging doubts of the backstage mind. All of that, forgotten. It is just rightness, so rare.