“Andrew just shrugged, and I fiddled with the napkin in my lap while glancing idly around the restaurant. The obligatory mirrors hung on the walls, and there was one of those fountains with fake lily pads in the entryway. The restaurant was also lit like a mine shaft. I've never understood why dim lighting is supposed to be so romantic. Night vision belongs into a Paris Hilton sex tape - not in a restaurant that could potentially poison me with peanut sauce.”

“I'd assume love was safe, like ordering the same thing at a restaurant every single time. I didn't realize that it could be a greasy roadside sandwich and vomiting, followed by a conversation that made time slow down and my heart speed up.”

“Yeah whatever," Andrew said impatiently. "He came back to the room that night and kept talking about this girl he'd seen at the stargazing. He was shy, and so I told him if he pointed you out, I'd try to finagle a meeting." I swear, Andrew's the only person in the world who could use a word like finagle with a straight face. "But he was talking about me," I said. Andrew shrugged. "When we figured it out, we had a good laugh about it," he said defensively. "But of course you were my girlfriend. So that was that.”

“Andrew would also drape his arm around my shoulders and then leave it there. Don't get me wrong, there's a thirteen-year-old girl inside of me who thrills at the fact that a boy is actually putting his arm around her. But there's also an eighteen-year-old (soon to be nineteen) who just thinks hello, it's called personal space. When the food comes that's pretty much cue to remove the arm.”

“Nathan laughed with little real humor. "Maybe that's because I was," he said. "I disapproved of the way Andrew treated you. And i really disapproved of the way I felt about you. You were my roommate's high school sweetheart, and even now, when you're crying over him, I just . . ." I felt like I was standing on the precipice, and my decision to jump or not was the most important one I could make in my life. "What?" I whispered. He look at me, and his eyes were very, very serious. "I just want to kiss you," he said.”

“I've never told another soul about the stories I make up while I'm trying to fall asleep, and I would never even consider writing them down. They're just too personal. Nathan fell silent as well, and I realized that maybe I wasn't the only one who felt that way. I wondered how many people in the world have daydreams spinning around in their heads that they would never put into words. Probably more than you would think.”

“Something occurred to me, and I sat up to face him. "Earlier, I asked you if you brought the guitar everywhere," I said, "and you got kind of wierd. Why? It's not like you're one of those jerks who always has a guitar but can't actually play it." "Don't you know?" "No." He grinned. "Everyone knows that the whole point of learning guitar is to impress girls. You can't just say, 'sorry, I'd love to show off, but I forgot my guitar at home,' can you?" Now it was my turn to laugh. "I guess not." "So now you know my secret," he said. "Did it work?" I pretended to think about it. "Yeah, it worked.”