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.

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

From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.

You raze the old to raise the new.

Come on, don't you ever stop and smell the coffee?

He knew me in all the ways that truly mattered: the shape of my fears, the contours of my dreams.

Forgiving others is easier when I remember that I'm human and stupid, too.