You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take. The night before, I'd offered up my hand. Now, if I held on, there was no telling what it was possible to recieve in return.

I was heading off to my new world. But I was taking a part of my past, and the future, along with me for the ride.

How fast were you?" Wes asked me. I said, "Not that fast." "You mean you couldn't... fly?" he said, smiling at me.

It was as familiar to me as a song I'd been hearing my whole life, covered by various people but the basic tune the same.

Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. It's a lie. It's just something that people say they'll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said ‘friendly' relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and it's like breaking up all over again. But messier.

I don't talk about my books while I'm writing them: not even my husband knows what a novel's about until it's done.

In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.