“Live like [me] for seventeen years and you either start seeing boys as chocolate-covered French éclairs on legs, the kind packing a thousand calories apiece, strictly hands-off, or you stop seeing them at all.”

“One day, while at the drugstore picking up some aspirin for my Mom, dear old Mrs. Burns, our pharmacist, shoved a pack of condoms into my hand with a conspiratorial wink."They glow in the dark," she whispered.This, from a sixty-five year-old granny, I kid you not. Stuff of nightmares.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson.""That's a misquotation, by the way," I countered without thinking. Which might've made more of an impact if I'd stopped grinning like a cretin."See? Ten minutes and you already know I read Sherlock Holmes. Just imagine what you could discover if we went out on a real date.”

“Before I knew it, my daily schedule had started to look a lot like this:Monday: Woke up, thought of Ryder; went to school, stared at Ryder; had lunch with J, gaped at Ryder; went to PE, brooded over Ryder's absence; went home, thought of Ryder; took a drive "accidentally" passing by Dave's Garage, spied on Ryder; came home, thought of Ryder; had dinner, no appetite due to lack-of Ryder; went to bed, tossed and turned thinking about Ryder.Tuesday: See above, with minor adjustments.Wednesday: Ryder wasn't in school, my world collapsedThursday: Same as Monday and TuesdayFriday: See above.Saturday: Nightmarishly long, boring. Drove by Dave's Garage twice, hoping to see Ryder.Sunday: See above, minus the drive-by. But, yay, tomorrow I'll see Ryder in school! God bless Mondays.”

“How could you be watching me the whole year?" I asked, sensing my eyes bulging, but unable to control it. "I think I would've noticed."His smile widened. "What, you mean, since you where always checking me out?”

“Things stay with you, they say, and the past grows into a living organism that you can never really shake off. Everything you've ever done, the good and the bad, is supposed to always be on your trail, breathing down your neck. Time acts on it, people say, or so they hope, and eventually some of it even gets forgotten, buried deep within.”

“Funny how I always thought the world would dilate and then snap back with a loud bang the day a boy happened to me. But there was no explosion, no fireworks, no sudden shift in the tectonic plates of the earth. It was more of a Zen moment - Quiet. Everything was instantly quiet. The world, my mind, the flux of time - all still. And in the middle of it was him.”