Girls don’t fight fair. They pull your hair and gauge you and pinch you; then they run off gasping to mommy when you try and defend yourself with a fist. Then you get locked into time out, and for what? No, my friend, the secret is, don’t snap at the bait. Let it dangle. Swim around it. Laugh it off. After a while they’ve given up and try to lure someone else.

Julie always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me.

I wipe away my tears and nod, because the pain in my leg is nothing compare to the one in my heart.

There's no winning arguments with your parents

A painting is more than the sum of its parts,' he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.

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.

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