When you're a teenager, your friends are your life. When you grow up, friendships seem to get pushed further and further back, until it seems like a luxury, a frivolity, like a bubble bath.

He reached out and pushed some hair behind her ears. The gesture was tender, but it hit her with an unexpected force, like when you're in the ocean and a wave hits you. It's so soft and coll that it surprised you that it has such strength.

Sometimes people who had been together for a long time got to imagining that things used to be better, even when they weren't.

Blank-slate friendships were thin and temperamental. She knew that. There was no history there to cement people together, for better or worse.

I've never seen you hide from anyone before. He must do something crazy to you.

Some people don't know how to fall in love, like not knowing how to swim. They panic first when they jump in. Then they figure it out.

The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy.