Something had changed in me, even if I didn't know what it was just yet. All I could think was that I felt alive for the first time.

Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on.

It's only advice. Ignore it if you want.

Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.

It was just perfect, just right all at once.

She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old enough by then to know not to believe it anymore.

Lissa lowered her voice and added, "I might not even go to school anyway. I might defer and join the Peace Corps and go to Africa and shave my head and dig latrines." "Shave your head?" I said, because, really, this was the most ludicrous part of the whole thing. "You? Do you have any idea how ugly most people's bare heads are? They've got all kinds of bumps, Lissa. And you won't know until it's too late and you're flat-out bald.