When you've never gotten love from someone, you don't know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.

Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.

I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away.

Whether it was a song, a person, or a story, there was a lot you couldn’t know from just an excerpt, a glance, or part of a chorus.

But even more so, it reminded me that this was all really happening. Stanford. The end of the summer. The beginning of my real life. It was no longer just creeping up, peeking over the horizon, but instead lingering in plain sight.

As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to leave. We were even. But I knew my mother wouldn't see it that way. Lately, we didn't seem to see anything the same.

I think when you're a beginning author with any publishing company, there's only so much they can put behind you.