You know," I told him,"if you don't know how to eat a cupcake, that's nothing to be ashamed of." Now he did smile. "I know how to eat a cupcake." "Sure you do." "I do," he said. "I just don't want one of those." "Yeah? Prove it.

I spent a lot of time looking at that picture. Wondering what I’d think of that girl, if I was someone else, seeing how easily she sits in her boyfriend’s lap, laughing, with his arms around her. I would have thought her life was perfect, the way I once thought Cass’s was. It was too easy, I was learning, to just assume things.

I wanted to tell him so. Find the right words, string them together in the ideal way, knowing that here they would have the best chance of sounding perfect.

Because it is so hard, in any life, to believe in what you can’t fully understand.

Morris was not the type to offer a hug or even hold your hand. But there was something in his quiet indignation at the universe then--and Luke, now--that was just the kind of comfort I needed. "I'm such a mess," I said. "We're almost off the island and I didn't even ask you where you were going." He shrugged. "No place. Wherever you are.

All those clean, fresh starts had made me forget what it was like, until now, to be messy and honest and out of control. To be real.

You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It's always been yes when it comes to you.