The Summer I Turned Pretty

by Jenny Han

Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens—but maybe if it’s how you see them, that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.

This moment between us, fragile and tenuous, snapped in half. It was over. It would do no good to wonder what he was going to say. Moments, when lost, can’t be found again. They’re just gone.

It’s hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.

I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that—gone.

Nobody can make you feel like anything, Belly. Not without your permission.