Me? Beautiful? I'm plain as cardboard. That may be how you see yourself, but the rest of the world would be hard to agree. You shine brighter than the Milky Way. Now there are those who might try to take that from you, but you don't have to give it away. Keep on shining Pattyn. And when the right young man comes along, he'll love you all the more for giftin' this sad planet with your light.

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.

I don't love him, & he definitely doesn't love me. Still, he semi-fills a gaping black hole inside me. That place wants love, maybe even needs love, but love is something I"m pretty sure doesn't exist.

I needed to see, needed to know, needed a whole lot more.

Except when it comes to Mom. She is, and always has been, the driving force in this family. And sometimes that means driving us head-on, no possible change of course, into a wall.

Words have power. The power to soothe. The power to skewer someone through the heart. The power to render someone speechless.

But, though I was very much in lust with him, I knew from the start we were nothing like "forever." Maybe because forever is such a scary place.