“We ate in the dining room alcove looking over the hillside and the silent dark rooftops of my neighbors. The lights of the valley glittered below.We were both tired but we smiled at each other, and I felt a kind of happiness growing inside me. It was good to look across the table and see someone, and I thought maybe it was time to start thinking about that again—about finding someone. Sharing my life maybe.Or maybe just getting more friends around. Except when I pictured the friends I wanted around, they all looked like Dan, and when I thought about trying to find someone to share my life with, he too looked a little too much like Dan for comfort.”

“Physical attraction that strong is addictive. And knowing that kind of magic isn’t just a fantasy makes me want to find it again. But what about being with someone who makes me a better person? What about sharing my life with someone who adores me as much as I adore him, whom I can always count on, who helps me find my way when I’m lost?”

“I'm talking about a little truth-in-packaging here. To be perfectly frank, you don't quite look like yourself. And if you walk around looking like someone other than who you are, you could end up getting the wrong job, the wrong friends, who knows what-all. You could end up with somebody else's life."I shrugged again, and smiled. "This is my life," I said. "It doesn't seem like the wrong one.”

“I always think of it like this: Rather than be the sun to someone and light up everything around them, I want to be the moon and light the way just a little in front of them when they are lost or uncertain in the darkness, and always be there with them when they look up. That’s my way of living.”

“That's why you look so tired, isn't it?" I murmured. "You used up all your magic to find me last night."Owen shrugged as though it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing to me. Besides Finn and the Deveraux sisters, I couldn't even remember the last time someone had cared enough to come looking for me when I was in trouble. I was so used to being on my own for so long, always being the tough, strong, capable one, that I'd forgotten how nice it felt to have someone else look out for me.To have someone else care about me.And just like that, the fragile strings of my feelings for Owen joined together, all the tangled threads wrapping around and weaving their way through my heart. Scary and painful in some ways, but necessary in others too.”

“I thought I was looking for something. Now I get that I was looking for someone. You. I'll go back to school and get my degree because it will make you happy. But also because it will make me the kind of man you want. This all about you, Aurelia. Don't you get that?”