And yet I understood the alienation of being around others who couldn't really see you or chose not to. I'd felt the self-loathing that came with being a fraud, protraying an image of what you wished you could be but weren't. I'd lived with the fear that people you loved might turn away from you if they ever got to know the true person hidden inside.

I've learned to allow myself the room to fall in love with what I'm writing.

Gideon was a man who’d lived an entirely solitary life, and yet he’d accepted me into it so completely that he could envision a future I was afraid to imagine. I was so scared I’d only be setting myself up for a heartbreak I couldn’t survive.

I love being with you. When we're not together, i wish we were

His smile was like lightning in the darkness, blinding and beautiful and mysterious, and I wanted him so badly it was physically painful.

He was the kind of guy that made a woman want to rip his shirt open and watch the buttons scatter along with her inhibitions.

That’s what scares me, Gideon. You don’t know what you’re worth.” “Actually, I do. Twelve bill—” “Shut up.