"I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?" "Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example." "Why not?" "Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff." "Like ride bikes?" I said. "No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And..." "Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?" "They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference."
Sarah DessenLife is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.
Sarah DessenPretend to be a delinquent?" I asked clarifying. "You can do it," Dave advised me. "Just don't smile, and try to look like you're considering stealing something.
Sarah DessenI'd seen another shade of him, and if it had been light where we were now, he'd have seen the same of me. So I was grateful, as I had been so often in my life, for the dark.
Sarah Dessen"Look," I said, "We knew Jason and Becky would be back, the break would end. This isn't a surprise, it's what's supposed to happen. It's what we wanted. Right?" "Is it?" he asked. "Is it what you want?" Whether he intended it to be or not, this was the final question, the last Truth. If I said what I really thought, I was opening myself up for a hurt bigger than I could even imagine. I didn't have it in me. We changed and altered so many rules, but it was this one, the only one when we'd started, that I would break. "Yes," I said.
Sarah Dessen