“Consider yourself hugged. Virtual hug."I felt the virtual hug, warm and snug.”

“You're toast."I felt like toast, burning with anger inside my waterproof layers. "I am not," I insisted. "I might be lightly browned on one side.”

“I felt confident that she wouldn't find out what a chicken I was,because after the comp,if I hadn't gone off the jump,I would be dead of shame.And if I had gone off the jump,I would be just plain dead.”

“His dark eyes challenged me. They were weapons that could hurt me. Here was the worst thing about them: I could tell that if Johnafter loved you, his dark eyes would be beautiful and friendly and warm. So every time he cut me down with a look that was cold and unfriendly and ugly, it was a double insult, a reminder of what I could never have. I found myself avoiding his dark eyes when I could.”

“What I wanted to talk to you about was—”He kissed me. At first he gently touched his lips to mine. e more exciting development was that in order to do this, he’d stepped very close. His chest was an inchfrom mine. I could feel his heat. He tasted of blackberries. He leaned even closer and braced his muscular arms on the tree on either side of me.When he broke the kiss to take a breath, I whispered, “Tree hugger.”He opened his eyes, blue as the afternoon sky, and gave me this look. A combination of amusement and exasperation and hunger. He looked like a teenager making outin the woods. Puzzling through this, I realized that I was gazing at him from the perspective of a six-year-old girl playing army and dodging rubber snakes.But he was this teenager, and so was I. I felt the same need for him that he felt for me, like a force was drawing me forward into his heat. I just didn’t know how to sayit.”

“I said, have you seen your butt?""Is that a rhetorical question?" I craned my neck to take a gander at my backside.Chloe clarified, "She means you have 'boy toy' written across the back of your jeans.""Oh." I nodded. "They're Josh's.""You say that as if it explains everything." She cocked her head to one side and considered me while buttoning her cardigan. "My stepbrothers dont write 'boy toy' across the back of their jeans.They only say the entire alphabet while burping.""That's nothing.Josh can recite the Gettysburg Address.”

“But, Erin. If you are trying to make a writing career for yourself, you will get rejected again and again and again. You must keep going. You must learn not to take no for an answer.”