You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.

An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. I t just feels that way.

In a way, I was almost happy to see her. The worst part of me, out in the flesh. Blinking back at me in the dim light, daring me to call her a name other than my own.

You can't act like you care about someone but not let them care about you.

I don't believe in failure, because simply by saying you've failed, you've admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who never try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them.

I remembered Owen telling me how music had saved him in Phoenix, that it drowned everything out, and it was the same for me now. As long as I had something to listen to, I could blur the things I didn't want to think about, if not block them out completely.

"So you're always honest," I said. "Aren't you?" "No," I told him. "I'm not." "Well, that's good to know, I guess." "I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways." "How'd you mean it, then?" "I just...I don't always say what I feel." "Why not?" "Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. "Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."