But I think, personally, that it would be worse to have been alone all that time. Sure, maybe I would have protected my heart from some things, but would that really have been better? To hold myself apart because I was too scared that something might no be forever?

Quiet and incredible. I really envy that.

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

But you don’t have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.” “You don’t have to assume the worst about everyone, either. The world isn’t always out to get you.

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.

Once, she'd been a pro at decompressing, loved to sit on the back deck of the beach house in one of our splintery Adirondack chairs for hours at a time, staring at the ocean. She never had a book or the paper or anything else to distract her. Just the horizon, but it kept her attention, her gaze unwavering. Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about being out there, the world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and out.

If he'd been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.