The most basic and somehow forgettable thing is this: Love is not pain. Love is goodness. And real love--it's less shiny than solid and simple.

True love, the good, beautiful, one-and-only kind, the kind between loving friends and family and partners who are mostly just trying hard to do their best, it manages to overlook some pieces of its story. It overlooks what he can’t give you or how she failed you or what mistakes he made when he was struggling. It stays steady at its center. It evolves, through drought and storm. It grows. It survives.

The way two people can and everything place, find each other in a crowd, and change your life the lives of the people around them forever... It makes you believe in fate. In fate love some extra authority. Some destined significance." Wow, very powerful.

I thought about him everyday until then. I started having these conversations with him in my head that you have when you meet someone you sense is going to be important in your life.

To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.

I understand he's not guilty of anything except maybe loving too much. This boy, he is just ... mine.