Breath and heat and contact and shirts off and skin on skin and smiles and murmurs and the enormity revealing itself in the tiniest of gestures, the most delicate sensations.

Do I really have to find a word for it? Can't it just be what it is?

Just because it's better now doesn't mean that it's always good.

exemplar, n.It's always something we have to negotiate- the face that my parents are happy, and yours have never been. I have something to live up to, and if I fail, I still have a family to welcome me home. You have a storyline to rewrite, and a lack of faith that it can ever be done.You love my parents, I know. But you never get too close. You never truly believe there aren't bad secrets underneath.

To be loved by God is to be loved for who you are. To love God is to place no boundaries on who you love...Whether or not I believe in the God of my ancestors, I see God in everyone.

So what do you have to confess now?"I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that is the truth. "I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this.""What is 'this'?""Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

There's no way to know if we would have lasted. There's no way to be sure, and plenty of reasons to doubt it. I just wish I'd had the chance. That is one of the things I miss the most— the chance to make it work.

I've always wanted the happy ending, but now I'll just settle for the ending.

He counts as an ex because he made me feel dumped even without making me feel loved first.