Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall—the blind belief in fate, the whole "things happening for a reason" drill.

The worst thing about this particular end (of my youth) and the beginning (of middle age) is that for the first time in my life, I realize I don't know where I'm going. My wants are simple: a job that I like and a guy whom I love. And on the eve of my thirteth, I must face that I am 0 for 2.

My name is Kirby Rose, and I'm adopted. I don't mean to make it sound like an AA confession, although sometimes that's how people take it, like it's something they should be supportive about. I just mean that they are two basic facts about me.

It was about grace, she decides, something that has been missing from her own life. ... She wants to be the kind of person who can bestow unearned kindness on another, replace bitterness with empathy, forgive only for the sake of forgiving.

Even if we no longer have much in common, we would have always had the past, which, in some ways, is just as important as the present or future. It is where we come from, what makes us who we are.

But one thing I have to say about Darcy and dating is this: she never blew us off for a guy. She always put her friends first- which is an amazing thing for a high school girl to do.

He threw in the towel before we were tested. Maybe because he didn't want to be tested. Maybe because he assumed we would fail. Maybe because, at the time, he just didn't love me enough.