All of a sudden I didn't fit in anywhere. Not at school, not at home...and every time I turned around, another person I'd known forever felt like a stranger to me. Even I felt like a stranger to me.

I just need some time to get over all those years of having liked him

Maybe my mother's right. Maybe there is more to Bryce Loski than I know. Maybe it's time to meet him in the proper light.

I fell asleep that night thinking about the kiss that might have been. What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet – only science would put them on the same tree.

I’ve flown kites before and I know – sometimes they’re gone forever, and sometimes they’re just waiting in the middle of the road for you to rescue them. Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I’ve had both kinds, and a lucky kite is definitely worth chasing for.

There was other stuff, too, like how something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.

But in my heart I knew that just like the new grass, I wasn't strong enough yet to be walked on