That Was Then, This is Now

by S.E. Hinton

If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.

You know what the crummiest feeling you can have is? To hate the person you love best in the world.

“I always think of you as my brother,” I said. I saw Mark’s face in the moonlight. He was smiling.

“Do you ever get the feeling that the whole thing is changin? Like somethin’ is coming to an end because somethin’ else is beginning?”

“The difference is,” I said evenly, “that was then, and this is now.”

I wondered if, when I got to be twenty, I would think how stupid I was at sixteen.