I keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.

That’s just the kind of thing that kids do to each other. It’s no big deal. There’s always going to be a person laughing and somebody getting laughed at. It happens every day, in every school, in every town in America—probably in the world, for all I know. The whole point of growing up is learning to stay on the laughing side.

"And I love you too." His fingers skate the edge of my jaw, dance briefly over my lips. "You should know that. You have to know that."

I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took

i feel like a curtain has dropped away and i'm seeing people for who they really are, different, and sharp, and unknowable.

my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart.

But if you do believe, then you already know all about magic.