Wait!" What?" I lowered my cup hastily, wondering if maybe there was a stray hair, or worse, a newly boiled bug inside my cup. You got to smell it first. It's the proper way to cup coffee." Cup coffee?" Taste it." What? Are you the coffee police or something?

Inertia is so easy—don't fix what's not broken. Leave well enough alone. So we end up accepting what is broken, mistaking complaining for action, procrastinating for deliberation.

The look he gave me...My stomach quivered in that exact same way when I watched Before Sunset, yearning for a guy to know me so deeply and truly, we were only really complete when we were together. That I could talk, go on wild tangents, make obtuse references, and he would divine my meaning before I knew what I was trying to say myself. Erik had fallen asleep next to me on the couch, complaining later that the movie was "just people talking." He had no idea that this movie could have been a love letter written for me.

What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than on mutual self respect?

The pressure of his touch through my jacket and my sweater was more assurance than any promise ever made to me. It was a touch that said, I have your back and I am here for you. If a girl wasn't careful, she could fall in love with a touch like that.

I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?

Maybe we don't have the same definition of about what's beautiful. So define it. Define true beauty.