I’ve won his heart, but it’s like owning a house in which most of the doors are permanently locked. He wants to shield me from all unpleasantness. And it’s not really marriage—not like the marriage you have with Cam—until he’s willing to share the worst of himself as well as the best of himself.

And then another letter had come from Christopher, so devastating that Amelia wondered how mere scratches of ink on paper could rip someone's soul to shreds. She had wondered how she could feel so much pain and still survive.

It didn't help matters that I was shy and wore glasses. I was never one to stand out in the crowd. I liked to stay in corners. And I was happiest when I was alone reading. That and the good grades I got in school had doomed any chance of being popular with my peers. So it was a foregone conclusion that boys like Hardy were never going to take notice of me.

It was often in small moments that significant things were revealed.

Baptists don’t spend their time thinking about reality.

I knew I would replay the scene countless times in the years before me, each time thinking of different things I should have said and done. But all I did was walk away without looking back.

Alone-sex didn't count. It's like the difference between thinking to yourself or having a good conversation with someone--the pleasure is in the exchange.