“We'll either come to a mutual understanding of one another, or he's going to kill me and chop me up into tiny pieces and bake me into cookie.”

“Let's not let this be your life tonight," he says. "Let's get back in the car and pretend we're driving away because we want to... not because we need to. We can pretend I'm taking you somewhere amazing... somewhere you've always wanted to go. You can snuggle up to me and we can talk about how excited we are and we'll talk about everything we'll do when we get there. We can talk about the important stuff later. But tonight... let's not let this be your life.”

“I know you're mad at me," he says, looking down at me. His eyes and his words are full of remorse, but the apology still doesn't come. "I need you to be mad at me, Sky. But I think I need you to still want me here with you even more.”

“I want him to lock his arms around me and throw away the key, because this is where he belongs and I'm scared he'll just let me go again.”

“He scoots me off his chest and onto my back, then slides down beside me and pulls me against him. Still, his expression hasn't changed and he's staring at me like he wants to eat me. I sort of wish he would.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to have a phone,” he says. “Or was that a really pathetic excuse to avoid giving me your number?”“I’m not allowed. My best friend gave it to me the other day. It can’t do anything but text.” He turns the screen around to face me. “What the hell kindof texts are these?” He turns the phone around and reads one.“Sky, you are beautiful. You are possibly the most exquisite creature in the universe and if anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll cut a bitch.” He archesan eyebrow and looks up at me, then back down to the phone. “Oh, God. They’re all like this. Please tell me you don’t text these to yourself for dailymotivation.”

“It’s killing me, baby,” he says, his voice much more calm and quiet. “It’s killing me because I don’t want you to go another day without knowing how I feel about you. And I’m not ready to tell you I’m in love with you, because I’m not. Not yet. But whatever this is I’m feeling—it’s so much more than just like. It’s so much more. And for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to figure it out. I’ve been trying to figure out why there isn’t some other word to describe it. I want to tell you exactly how I feel but there isn’t a single goddamned word in the entire dictionary that can describe this point between liking you and loving you, but I need that word. I need it because I need you to hear me say it.”