But I'd long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They weren't guaranteed or promised. You were lucky, more than blessed, if you got a good-bye at all.

Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.

Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't under­stand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away.

My agent is so totally honest, which is just what every writer needs. She won't let me sell a crappy book, even if I want to.

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.

Don't give me no rotten tomato, 'cause all I ever wanted was your sweet potato.

Then what are you like, Annabel?" he shot back. "A liar, like you told me that first day? Come on. That was the biggest lie of all.