I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing].

Oh for God's sake,' Heather said, 'I wish you two would just go out, fail miserably as a couple, and get it over with.

You don't have to make things harder then they have to be just to prove a point.

Don't think or judge, just listen.

I wanted to be somewhere else ... Someplace where the sight of me sobbing would tie me to no one and no one to me.

There was no way to take the story back, folding it neatly into the place I'd kept it all this time. No matter what else happened, from here on out, I would always remember Wes, because with this telling, he'd become part of that story, of my story, too.

The chances we take, knowing no better than to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in... protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.