I loved him in a way that you can really only do the first time around. It's the kind of love that doesn't know better and doesn't want to-it's dizzy and foolish and fierce. That kind of love is really a one-time-only thing.

If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms.

There hadn’t been one specific moment. It was like gradualy waking up. You go from being asleep to the space between dreaming and awake and then into consciousness. It’s a slow process, but when you’re awake, there’s no mistaking it. There was no mistaking that it had been love.

Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's the part of the risk. I don't want to be scared anymore.

Aching familiar in a way that made me wish I was still eight. Eight was before death or divorce or heartbreak. Eight was just eight. Hot dogs and peanut butter, mosquito bites and splinters, bikes and boogie boards. Tangled hair, sunburned shoulders, Judy Blume, in bed by nine thirty.

I knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn't expect was to feel so much grief.

Happiness is a Slurpee and a hot pink straw.