But why?" "You heard the pay, right? And also, to be near you." Thumbing a tear from my cheek, he added, "Mostly, to be near you.

Growing up with my dad taught me to either lie like a pro or not bother.

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.

But even if you have what everyone else wants- if it isn't what you want, it isn't what you want

The way he kissed me felt like a brand. Like he was tattooing himself under my skin.

I’d always disparaged the games people played in pursuit of love - or the next hook up. The whole thing was a competition to see who could get how far, and I could never figure out if there was more luck or skill involved, or some unknowable combination of the two. People rarely said what they thought, or revealed how they felt. No one was honest.

There's something uncontaminated about her, and I don't even mean sexually or whatever. I mean the way she is, at her core. Like when you wake up and the world has been blanketed by snow overnight, and not a single footstep or tire track has spoiled the untouched perfection of it.