Elements of Chemistry: Attraction (Hypothesis, #1)

by Penny Reid

an important issue and worth the effort and frustration. You are doing the right thing.” Every once in a while I served as my mother’s cheerleader. Every so often she served as mine. These occasions were rare as we both believed in self-sufficiency unless circumstances were dire.

Energy should be spent on solutions to real problems—like

He was so handsome I felt like filing a civil lawsuit against his parents, claiming punitive damages, pain and suffering to my psyche.

Fools fight compliments, she’d said, and sometimes other people see you better than you can see yourself.

She told me I should be proud of my healthy shape and healthy body, and love and treasure it because it was mine. No one, she said, could tell me what to think of my body. If I let another person’s opinion matter I was giving him or her control over me, and I had complete control over my self-image.

“You’re the girl that guys like us, if we’re smart and if we’re lucky that is, you’re the girl we marry. You’re the marriage girl.”

“I have two sisters, and I tell them this all the time. Be the marriage girl. Don’t be the hook-up girl. Don’t be her. She’s stupid and shallow. Yes, she gets lots of male attention, dressing in her sexy lumberjack or sexy nun costumes…for a time. But then she’s used up, hardened, disillusioned and desperate, because no one stays with the hook-up girl.”