The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily (Dash & Lily #2)

by Rachel Cohn

“First of all, it’s not fair to expect Dash to be psychic about what you really want from him. Second, and this is just a broader piece of advice for you about anyone you might date, but any male who automatically knows how to tick off all the items on your female wish-fulfillment list is too good to be true. It’s not natural to their species, and you should find it highly suspicious if he does.

She’s also a sapling. But that’s the beauty of your young love—you can learn to be trees together.”

“The thing to remember—what I really want you to remember—is that it doesn’t matter whether I actually live at the North Pole or whether I’m the one who brings you presents every Christmas Eve. People like Tanner are going to tell you I’m pretend, and then when you get older, people like Tanner are going to tell you other things are pretend. But you know what to say to that? So what. That’s what you tell them. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether the story’s true or not. What matters is the care that’s been put into the story. The love. If something is pretend, that usually means someone has taken the time to build a story for you to live in. And building stories takes a lot of work. And, yes, there will come a time when you’ll see the story isn’t true. But the intentions behind it? Completely true. The love behind it? Also true.”

“But what about presents?” “You’ll get them. And they will come from people who love you. Which means much more than having the presents come from some arbitrary guy with reindeer at his disposal.”

“I think that maybe by pretending, we find out more about who we really are.

“And even though there’s no mistletoe in sight, may I kiss you in the middle of this crowded department store entrance?” “Yes.” So there we were. That completely obnoxious pair of teenagers making out in the doorway of a major department store, eliciting stares and curses from passersby and not caring one bit.