"Look," I said, "We knew Jason and Becky would be back, the break would end. This isn't a surprise, it's what's supposed to happen. It's what we wanted. Right?" "Is it?" he asked. "Is it what you want?" Whether he intended it to be or not, this was the final question, the last Truth. If I said what I really thought, I was opening myself up for a hurt bigger than I could even imagine. I didn't have it in me. We changed and altered so many rules, but it was this one, the only one when we'd started, that I would break. "Yes," I said.

I hoped this was true. Even if it wasn‟t, all I could do was hand over what I could, with the hope of something in return. But of course, this was easier said than done.

The only trick was never giving more that you were willing to lose.

You can't act like you care about someone but not let them care about you.

All those clean, fresh starts had made me forget what it was like, until now, to be messy and honest and out of control. To be real.

All of my stories, they don't come from my high school experience, but they're definitely based on things that happened to me in high school, or things that happened to friends of mine, or things that I wish had happened to me.

But those words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too.