“What was I afraid of, exactly? What other people would think? I guess, a little. But that wasn't what was stopping me from acting on my feelings. It was the intensity of them. The desire for her. I knew if I gave into it, I'd have to surrender myself completely. I'd lose all control. Everything I knew, everything I was, the walls I'd built up to protect myself all these years would come crashing down. I might get lost in the rubble. Yet, she made me feel alive in a way I'd only ever imagined I could feel. Bells, whistles, music.”

“I knew I couldn't be imagining it, because it wasn't exactly a good feeling, and if I'd imagined touching Cam, if would have felt good.”

“Being near Tom and Doug at night kept me from having to say to myself I am not afraid whenever I heard a branch snap in the dark or the wind shook so fiercely it seemed something bad was about to happen. But I wasn't out here to keep myself from having to say I am not afraid. I'd come, I'd realized, to stare that fear down, to stare everything down, really -- all that I'd done to myself and all that had been done to me. I couldn't do that while tagging along with someone else.”

“What would you do if you could fly?" Mrs. V asks as she glances from the bird to me. "Is that on the quiz?" I ask, grinning as I type."I think we've studied just about everything else." Mrs. V chuckles."I'd be scared to let go," I type."Afraid you'd fall?" she asks."No. Afraid it would feel so good, I'd just fly away.”

“And yet, I felt a surge of exhilaration just thinking about that night. Not just because I'd met the prince and fallen in love and started on my course toward happiness ever after, but because I'd made something happen. I'd done something everybody had told me I couldn't. I'd changed my life all by myself. Having a fairy godmother would have ruined everything.”

“You made me human. I stand by that. You made me into somebody I would have wanted to become, if I'd ever thought about what I wanted to be that wasn't about a record or power or a rank or some...delusion I was chasing. If all that was gone and stripped away, the man I am, I am because of what you did, what you made me feel all those years.”