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 planned my whole future around Adam," she said now, quietly. "And now I have nothing." "No," I told her, "now you just don't have Adam. There's a big difference, Lissa. You just can't see it yet.

I've always known who I am. I might not work perfectly, or be like them, but that's okay. I know I work in my own way.

It's so, so stupid what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid.

But even more so, it reminded me that this was all really happening. Stanford. The end of the summer. The beginning of my real life. It was no longer just creeping up, peeking over the horizon, but instead lingering in plain sight.

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.

I've given lots of people chances. But there's only so much faith you can have in people.