But as was so often the case, it was the one person missing who you thought about more than the ones who were right in front of you.

I'd known enough people for every minute of the day, and yet still didn't have anyone as my two a.m.

The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.

You didn't have to take a punch for me, you know,' he said. 'I'm a lover, not a fighter.' 'You're a freak is what you are,' I said. He stuck out his hand. 'Come on, slugger. Walk with me. You know you want to.' And the thing was, despite everything I knew-that it was a mistake, that he was different from the others-I did. How he knew that, I had no idea. But I got up and did it anyway.

I'm incredibly flattered when people tell me that my books helped them through high school. Because of my own experience, the thought that something I wrote might help someone who felt the way I did when I was a teen...that's huge. It awes me.

This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spoke aloud. I should have been with him; she should have left him alone. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater.