Not. Your. Fault." I nodded again, holding onto his words like they were redemption.

Why don't you go get in bed?" I stood, laying my hand on his chest and staring up at him. "Is that a dare?" He laid one hand over mine and pull me closer with the other. Leaning down, he kissed me gently. "It absolutely is. No falling out of it allowed, though.

But the scars are always there, waiting for something to poke them.

I was so afraid of wanting too much that I couldn't trust her handing me a shot at getting it. I don't want to be that senselessly fearful ever again.

A word of advice, though. This won't be the last time you have to deal with something in life that throws you off your game. In future courses, as well as in the real world--such as it is--professors and employers won't always be accommodating. We all have to--what's my daughter's terminology--suck it up and deal?

No matter what happened to any individual person, life was going on elsewhere. The first time Kennedy kissed me, it stood to reason that at the same time, other people were splitting up. And the night Kennedy broke my heart, somewhere - maybe right there in my dorm, other people were falling in love.

Really, he could have just punched me in the stomach, because my brain refused to comprehend the words he was saying. A physical assault, it might have understood.