“And what happens when I finally decide to let him in, and he tells me that he doesn’t feel the spark that I feel?”“Then you Taser him and ask him again when he wakes up.” She laughed.”

“He seems like a good guy but you need to find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot and who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will stay awake just to watch you sleep. Who wants to show off how pretty you look even in sweats...Who thinks you’re just as pretty without make-up and reminds you how lucky he is to have you. The one that says ‘that’s her.”

“Julia Kline, you’ve spent your whole life running and all you’ve done is run farther away from the love that’s been waiting for you all along. The first time you smiled at me with your two missing teeth you had my undivided attention. When you laugh, I want to laugh with you. When you cry, I want to be the one to hold you. When you said you loved me, you highjacked my heart forever. They say that love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. Your happiness is what I will spend the rest of my life striving to give you. I love you so much. Will you do the honor of marrying me?”

“Worse day ever!" I whined to Ellie."Oh, worse than the time you got pulled over and the cop said 'papers' and you said 'scissors, I win' and he didn't laugh?”

“I will never see him again. Never know why he let me go. Never learn if he really whispered what I think he did. Beautiful.”

“When I shoot, the ball bounces hard against the backboard, and flies wildly through the air, knocking the coach in the head. I slap a hand over my mouth. The coach barely catches herself from falling. Several students laugh. She glares at me and readjusts her cap. With a small wave of apology, I head back to the end of the line. Will's there fighting laughter. "Nice," he says. "Glad I'm downcourt of you." I cross my arms and resist smiling, resist letting myself feel good around him. But he makes it hard. I want to smile. I want to like him, to be around him, to know him. "Happy to amuse you.”

“I once saw a show about an amputee who lost his leg and still feels it. He actually wakes up at night to scratch his leg as if it’s still there, attached to him. They call it a phantom limb.I would be like that. A phantom draki, tormented with the memory of what I once was.”