Sarah Dessen

“need a ride?””Of course we need a ride!” Scarlett screamed at him. “Are you stupid?”“That would be nice, thank you,” I said smoothly”

“You could just tell when a person belonged somewhere. That is something you can't fake, no matter how hard you try”

“He took the mess that was Macbeth and fixed it, and I wonder if he might, in some small way, be able to do the same for me.”

“Best Friends. And I thought of what she had done all the millions of times I cried to her, collapsing at even the slightest wounding of my heart or pride. So I reached over and pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her, and held my best friend close, returning so many favors all at once....”

“The first boy was always the hardest.”

“Hay un momento en la vida en el que el mundo se calla y lo único que queda es tu propio corazón. Así que más vale que aprendas cómo suena. Si no, nunca entenderás lo que está diciendo.”

“Almost, I thought. Out loud I said, "Just because we don't see eye to eye on everything doesn't mean we can't be close.Auden”

“The thing is I'm a great believer in the perfect moment. They don't come around that often.”

“Calling for delivery is my favorite recipe.”

“…It’s not just where you go, but how you choose to get there.”

“From up above, in a plane passing over, you’d just see one little light in all this dark, with no idea of the lives that were being lived within it, and in the house beside, and beside that one. So much happening in the world, night and day, hour by hour. It was no wonder we were meant to sleep, if only to check out of it for a little while.”

“You’re always a kid around your parents… Unless they’re acting like children. Then you don’t get the chance.”

“Who says you have to be either smart or pretty, or into girly stuff or sports? Life shouldn’t be about the either/or. We’re capable of more than that, you know?”

“There were endless ways to spend your days, I knew that, none of them right or wrong. But given the chance for a real do-over, another way around, who would say no?”

“That was one of the things about the night. Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn’t so much once you passed a certain hour. It was like the dark just evened it all out somehow.”

“…You don’t want the best of times to be just one thing, forever. You have to have a lot of bests of times, each one topping the last. You know?”

“...You can't unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.”

“She leaned back against the step, smoothing her hands over her stomach. Though she wasn't showing yet, just in the last week she'd started to look different. It wasn't something I could describe easily. It was like those stop-action films of flowers blooming that we watched in Biology. Every frame something is happening, something little that would be missed in real time - the sprout pushing, bit by bit, from the ground, the petals slowly moving outward. To the naked eye, it's just suddenly blooming, color today where there was none before. But in real time, it's always building, working to show itself, to become.”

“I knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just a moment, a perfect moment, as time stood still and fleetingly everything fell back into its proper place.”

“As I stepped out to face myself in the mirror, reaching a hand to smooth away the steam, I saw myself differently. It was as if I had grown again as I slept, but this time just to fit my own size. As if my soul had expanded, filling out the gaps of the height that had burdened me all these months. Like a balloon filling slowly with air, becoming all smooth and buoyant, I felt like I finally fit within myself, edge to edge, every crevice filled.”

“I was tired of hanging on, taking the torn pieces to make something whole with them.”

“I felt something catch in my throat, a sudden surge of sadness that caught me unaware, almost taking my breath away. That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of something being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

“Somewhere along the way, I started to believe it myself. I think that being brave and self confident doesn’t necessarily start inside, honey. It starts with the rest of the world, and it leads back to you.”

“Mais dans la vie, tout n'est pas parfait. Parfois, il faut se fabriquer sa propre histoire. Donner un petit coup de pouce au destin, tu comprends?”

“So look," he began, leaning over the desk, "I was—""Excuse me?" Bethany said. Her voice was loud, even.Wes turned and looked at her. As he did so, I watched his profile, his arm, that little bit of the heart inhand peeking out from his sleeve."We can help you over here," Bethany said to him. "Did you have a question?""Um, sort of," Wes said, glancing at me, a mild smile on his face. "But—""I can answer it," Bethany said solidly, so confidently. Amanda, beside her, nodded, seconding this."Really, it's fine," he said, then looked at me again. He raised his eyebrows, and I just shrugged. "Okay,so—""She's only a trainee, she won't know the answer," Bethany told him, pushing her chair over closer towhere he was, her voice too loud, bossy even. "It's better if you ask me. Or ask us."Then, and only then, did I see the tiniest flicker of annoyance on Wes's face. "You know," Wes said, "Ithink she'll know it.""She won't. Ask me."Now it wasn't just a flicker. Wes looked at me, narrowing his eyes, and for a second I just stared back.Whatever happens, I thought, happens. For the first time, time at the info desk was flying."Okay," he said slowly, moving down the counter. He leaned on his elbows, closer to Bethany, and shesat up even straighter, readying herself, like someone onJeopardy awaiting the Daily Double. "So here'smy question."Amanda picked up a pen, as if there might be a written portion."Last night," Wes said, his voice serious, "when the supplies were being packed up, what happened tothe big tongs?"The sick part was that Bethany, for a second, looked as if she was actually flipping through her mentalRolodex for the answer. I watched her swallow, then purse her lips. "Well," she said. But that was all.I could feel myself smiling. A real smile.Wes looked at Amanda. "Do you know?"Amanda shook her head slowly."All right," he said, turning back to look at me. "Better ask the trainee, then. Macy?"I could feel Amanda and Bethany looking at me. "They're in the bottom of that cart with the brokenback wheel, under the aprons," I said. "There wasn't room for them with the other serving stuff.”

“Explain it to me."But I couldn't. I'd had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood., If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.”

“... Everything he feels, he feels strongly. Too strongly, sometimes. I think he freaks people out.”

“I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.”

“Shit," Delia said. "I mean, shoot. No, actually, I mean shit. I really do.”

“It's hard to do," I said. Wes looked at me. "What is?" I swallowed, not sure why I'd said this out loud. "Get it right.”

“It's both, it all depends on how you choose to live it. Forever is always changing.'[About if life is short or long]”

“It wasn't until Kiffney-Brown, when I met Jason Talbot, that I really thought I might actually have one of those boyfriend kind of stories to tell the next time I got together with my old friends. Jason was smart, good-looking, and seriously on the rebound after his girlfriend at Jackson dumped him for, in his words, 'a juvenile delinquent welder with a tattoo'.”

“If you have just one person believe in you, you'll always find your way”

“I could pretend otherwise, pushing it out of sight and hopefully out of mind. But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance.”

“If this was my forever, I didn't want to spend another second of it here.”

“So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet.”

“Because anyone that can make you feel that bad about yourself is toxic.”

“Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about being out there, the world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and out.”

“Monica's about sick, she's almost inconsolable”

“Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?"As always, he took a second to think about the answer."Clowns," he said."Clowns.""Yup."I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me."That is not a real answer," I told him."Says who?""Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence."He thought for a second. "Clowns.”

“Please God, I'm begging you”

“Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So don't be afraid. Be alive.”

“Just because someone's pretty, doesn't mean she's decent.”

“It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.”

“And guys don't get attached, guys don't give themselves over completely, and guys lie. That's why they should be handled with great trepidation, not trusted, and held at arm's length whenever possible.”

“Everything always gets crazy at the end. You just have to keep going, regardless of how awful it gets. So that's what I do.”

“I wondered if it was really because he cared about me, or if now I was just another challenge.”

“And like my dad always said, the first step is always the hardest.”

“Apologies come in all shapes and sizes. You can give diamonds, candy, flowers, or just your deepest heartfelt sentiment.”

“Please. She sighed. 'Can't a girl have high standards? I don't want an ordinary boy.”