It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.

This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going.

So this had been all I wanted, a boy who understood how I felt. Now, though, I sometimes wished for more.

Some writers pick a topic and write around that, but I like to include it all.

I always thought I was different.

I just stood there, looking at her. My head was spinning, my mouth dry, and all I could think about was that I wanted to go someplace safe, someplace I could be alone and okay, and that this was impossible. My old life had changed and my new one was still in progress, altering by the second. There was nothing, nothing to depend on. And why was I surprised?