Dutifully I knock on the table. “What does knock on wood even mean?” Daddy perks up. “Actually, it’s thought to come from Greek mythology. According to Greek myths, dryads lived in trees, and people would invoke them for protection. Hence knocking on wood: just that added bit of protection so as not to tempt fate.
I’m really glad my first time was with Josh, though. It should be with someone who really knows you. Someone who loves you.
I will never forget tonight, not for as long as I live. One day, if I’m lucky, I’ll tell some young girl all my stories, just like Stormy told me hers. And I’ll get to live them again. When I’m old and gray, I will look back on this night, and I will remember it just as it was. Is. We’re still here. It’s not the future yet.
I blink. “So you’re leaving for good, then?” “Not for good. Just for now.
It’s such a normal thing to be discussing on a Thursday evening, but I feel so strange, because it’s as if the earth is shifting beneath my feet, and the ground isn’t steady anymore, but everyone around me is talking about food.
Stormy taught me that love is about making brave choices every day. That’s what Stormy did. She always picked love; she always picked adventure. To her they were one and the same. And now she’s off on a new adventure, and we wish her well.
I’ll order steak with a baked potato on the side, and for dessert I’ll have a strawberry sundae with whipped cream.
The day after graduation, the senior class packs up and goes to Nags Head for a week. Never in a million years did I think I would be going. For one thing, you have to gather up enough friends to rent a house together – like ten friends!
He says it with all the certainty only a teenage boy can have, and I have never loved him more than at this very moment.
Angry walking sure gets you places in a hurry.
He thinks I’m so quirky. I’m not planning on being the one to break the news to him that I’m actually not that quirky, that in fact lots of people like to stay home and bake cookies and scrapbook and hang out in libraries. Most of them are probably in their fifties, but still.
Why am I the one making all these concessions, pretending to be okay with something I’m not actually okay with? Just to keep him?
Dear God, please, please let me get into UVA.
Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind.
But I also just wish I could have a hug from my mom on my graduation day.
Not for good. Just for now.
Son las imperfecciones las que hacen las cosas hermosas.
New York is truly a city of baked goods.
He kissed like he was drowning and I was air. It was passionate, and desperate, and like nothing I had ever experienced before. This.
I like to watch Peter when he doesn’t know I’m looking. I like to admire the straight line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone. There’s an openness to his face, an innocence – a certain kind of niceness. It’s the niceness that touches my heart the most.