I think if you're going to show a true representation of any one life, it can't be about any one thing. I try to see more of a full picture, with the romance just a single part.

The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

It's not always so simple, Haven. Sometimes there isn't a good guy and a bad guy. Sometimes even the ones you want to believe turn out to be liars.

The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.

Maybe if I'd agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of riding jump bikes with a bunch of grungy boys. I'd always tell her, why can't I do both? Who says you have to be either smart or pretty, or into girly stuff or sports? Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?

The thing is I'm a great believer in the perfect moment. They don't come around that often.