Okay. Enough." I got out of the closet, brushing myself off, then turned around to face her. "This is happening. So you need to go downstairs, face your fears, and make the best of it, and everything will be okay." She narrowed her eyes at me. "When did you suddenly become so positive?" "Just get out of there.

Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

Again, it occurred to me how weird it was to be permanent in a place that to everyone else was only temporary. Like I could never be sure if they were the ones who weren't real, or if I was.

It took a lot of work to be perfect. If you didn’t want to break a sweat, there was no point in even bothering.

I took his wildness from him and tried to fold it into myself, filling up the empty spaces all those second place finishes left behind.

The chances we take, knowing no better than to fall or to stand back and hold ourselves in... protecting our hearts with the tightest of grips.

"Look," I said, "We knew Jason and Becky would be back, the break would end. This isn't a surprise, it's what's supposed to happen. It's what we wanted. Right?" "Is it?" he asked. "Is it what you want?" Whether he intended it to be or not, this was the final question, the last Truth. If I said what I really thought, I was opening myself up for a hurt bigger than I could even imagine. I didn't have it in me. We changed and altered so many rules, but it was this one, the only one when we'd started, that I would break. "Yes," I said.