Puddin' (Dumplin', #2)

by Julie Murphy

Actually, she’s more of a smother than a mother, but she’s my smother.

nothing’s wrong with being friends, but what I feel for him is different than friendship.)

exercising only existed for the sake of becoming someone I’m not instead of taking care of who I am.

“It’s like not being hungry, but still being okay with eating pizza or even enjoying it. And then there are some people who just don’t like pizza no matter what.”

“You don’t have to be like this,” she says again. “Every time you say some rude, biting thing, it’s a choice you’re making. And you don’t have to make that choice.

I just cannot fathom how this constant finishing-each-other’s-sentences type of affection isn’t somehow fake. No one clicks with anyone else like that. Not in a real way.

the only thing I know is that they’re all living my dream without me, and not a single one of them seems to care.

the kind of person that only knows how to tell you what’s wrong and not what’s right.

the more people you share your hopes with, the flimsier they become. Suddenly everyone else is poking holes in your future until there’s not much left to hope for at all.

the wrong direction sometimes feels better than no direction at all.”

I feel like I’ve lost the layer of skin that protects me and keeps me safe from the rest of the world.

I resent her for not believing I could be more. I resent her because I’m scared she’s right.

I keep waiting for this one big moment when she won’t be disappointed in me anymore, but maybe that’s not how you gain back someone’s trust in real life. Maybe it’s a slow, frustrating thing that takes lots

For the longest time, I thought the power of positive thinking would get me by. And it helps, that’s for dang sure. But it takes more than thinking and hoping and wishing and praying. You need a whole lot of doing.

has never taught a day in his life, and who also happens to be the president of the school board,