I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more.

Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.

But the original was there as well—more jaded and rudimentary, functional rather than romantic. It fit not just the yellow house but another door, deep within my own heart. One that had been locked so tight for so long that I was afraid to even try it for fear of what might be on the other side

Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour, could make all the difference. So much hanging on just these things, tiny increments that together build a life. Like words build a story, and what had Ted said? One word can change the entire world.

It's never long distance between friends.

I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.

When I was in high school, I was always really envious of those girls who seemed to have everything: the perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect boyfriend, perfect life. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that nobody's life is perfect, and that those girls probably had a lot of the same problems I did.