She tried to be someone people liked. She tried to be someone people disliked. But all I became was someone who didn't succeed with anything I tried to be.

Everyone laughed, and just like that, the conversation shifted, jumping to another topic. It was fast and furious, the talking, the emotions, the back-and-forth and forth-and-back. I realized that if I tried to focus on it too much, I got overwhelmed. So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.

The basic fact is that no, this isn't ideal. Very few things are. Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push,so to speak.

You can't make any one person your world. The trick is to take what each can give you and build a world from it.

We laughed ourselves silly, taking back our shared past, gently, piece by piece.

I felt like I'd been swimming so hard, and the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn't there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers.

Are you crazy? Flirting with Eli Stock in front of Belissa Norwood, in Belissa Norwood’s house, while eating Belissa Norwood’s cupcakes?