“Well I'll be honest...sometimes it's really hard-""I know." I smirked, feeling saucy. "I can tell. I'm pretty much straddling you right now.""Really hard to stop, smart-ass," Brendan emphasized, giving me a playful squeeze before cocking an eyebrow at me.”

“I cocked my fist back, remembering what Brendan had taught me. "Don't aim for your target. You'll have more of an impact that way." I was aiming for China.”

“I couldn't help it: Brendan was abs-olutely pec-tacular, horrible puns intended and very accurate.”

“It's hard to take someone seriously when they leave you a note saying, 'Your ugly.' My ugly what? The idiot didn't even know the difference between your and you're.”

“What I was hungry for was sitting nonchalantly next to me on the couch.”

“I wasn’t exactly a stranger to feeling like a princess—if you meant the princess in the first half of the fairy tale. Cinderella as a scullery maid. Snow White with the wicked stepmother. But I wasn’t used to what life was like after you meet the prince, after the slipper fits, after the kiss wakes you from your slumber. It would take some getting used to.”

“I longed to know what it felt like to have one person eclipse everything bad in your life - be a place of pure joy.”