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.

Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.

Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.

Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?" I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This." I said. And then I kissed him.

There were endless ways to spend your days, I knew that, none of them right or wrong. But given the chance for a real do-over, another way around, who would say no?

I wasn't ready for this, but then I probably never would be, and this year, like so much else, wouldn't wait. I had no choice but to get out of my car, with everyone watching and begin in earnest, alone. So I did

If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again!