“Imperfections define perfection”

“There are moments in every relationship that define when two people start to fall in love.A first glanceA first smileA first kissA first fall ...”

“I pull his mouth to mine and I kiss him. I kiss him for always having the perfect thing to say. I kiss him for always being there for me. I kiss him for supporting whatever decision I think I might need to make. I kiss him for being so patient with me while I figure everything out. I kiss him because I can’t think of anything better than climbing back inside that car with him and talking about everything we’ll do when we get to Hawaii. - Sky”

“And while I could sit here and feel sorry for myself, wondering why all of this happened to me..I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to wish for a perfect life. The things that knock you down in life are tests, forcing you to make a choice between giving in and remaining on the ground or wiping the dirt off and standing up even taller than you did before you were knocked down. I'm choosing to stand taller. I'll probably get kicked down a few more times before this life is through with me, but I can guarantee you I'll never stay on the ground.”

“One of the things I love about books is being able to define and condense certain portions of a character's life into chapters. It's intriguing, because you can't do this with real life. You can't just end a chapter, then skip the things you don't want to live through, only to open it up to a chapter that better suits your mood. Life can't be divided into chapters... only minutes. The events of your life are all crammed together one minute right after the other without any time lapses or blank pages or chapter breaks because no matter what happens life just keeps going and moving forward and words keep flowing and truths keep spewing whether you like it or not and life never lets you pause and just catch your fucking breath.I need one of those chapter breaks. I just want to catch my breath, but I have no idea how.”

“I met a girl in a U-Haul.A beautiful girlAnd I fell for her.I fell hard.Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way.Life definitely got in my way.It got all up in my damn way,Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden 2x4'snailed together and attached to a fifteen inch concrete wallbehind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to a titanium frame thatno matter how hard I shoved against it-Itwouldn'tbudge.Sometimes life doesn't budge.It just gets all up in your damn way.It blocked my plans, my dreams, my desires, my wishes,my wants, my needs.It blocked out that beautiful girlThat I fell so hard for.Life tries to tell you what's best for youWhat should be most important to youWhat should come in firstOr secondOr third.I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized,stacked in chronological order, everything in its perfect space,its perfect place.I thought that's what life wanted me to do.This is what life needed for me to do.Right?Keep it all in sequence?Sometimes, life gets in your way.It gets all up in your damn way.But it doesn't get all up in your damn way because itwants you to just give up and let it take control. Life doesn't getall up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it allover and be carried along.Life wants you to fight it.It wants you to grab an axe and hack through the wood.It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break throughthe concrete.It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metaland steel until you can reach through and grab it.Life wants you to grab all the organized, thealphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you tomix it all together,stir it up,blend it.Life doesn't want you to let it tell you that your littlebrother should be the only thing that comes first.Life doesn't want you to let it tell you that your careerand your education should be the only thing that comes insecond.And life definitely doesn't want meTo just let it tell methat the girl I met,The beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient girlThat I fell so hard forShould only come in third.Life knows.Life is trying to tell meThat the girl I love,The girl I fellSo hard for?There's room for her in first.I'm putting her first.”

“You’re so cute when you’re jealous,” I say. She looks at me, her resolve melting with my words. I take her face in my hands and gently press my lips to hers. She sighs a quiet, defeated sigh into my mouth and relents, parting her lips for me. I run my hands down her arms and to her waist, then pull her out of the chair and on top of me as I lean back onto the bed.I place one hand on the small of her back, pressing her into me, and my other hand I run through her hair, grabbing the back of her head. I kiss her hard as I roll her onto her back, proving to her that she has absolutely nothing to be jealous of. As soon as I’m on top of her, she places her hands on my cheeks and forces my face apart from hers.“So your lips touched someone else’s lips? After our first kiss?”I fall back onto the bed beside her. “Lake, stop it. Stop thinking about it,” I say.“I can’t, Will.” She turns to me and makes that damn pouty face she knows I can’t refuse. “I need to know. In my head all I can picture is you taking some girl out on this perfect date and making her grilled cheese sandwiches and playing “would you rather” with her and sharing seriously intense moments with her, then kissing the hell out of her at the end of the night.”Her description of our first date causes me to laugh. I lean over and press my lips to her ear and whisper, “Is that what I did to you? I kissed the hell out of you?”She pulls her neck away and shoots me a glare, letting me know she isn’t backing down until she gets her way. “Fine,” I say, pulling back. “If I tell you all about it will you promise to let me kiss the hell out of you again?”“Promise,” she says.”