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

by Rachel Cohn

I always made it my mission to like him, because somebody has to like the people no one else likes or the world would just be hopeless.

She was the person I wanted to share life with the most, and it was the moments of noticing that made me feel this most acutely.

“We always torch the ones we love—” “—the ones we shouldn’t torch at all.”

And I might even love him enough to stop being so afraid of it.

“I remind myself that I don’t need to know everything, that there will always be essential rooms within us that will be unknown.

Third, if you feel so strongly about him, I think it’s your responsibility to be honest with him about it and not wait for him to tell you something he has no idea you’re waiting to hear.”

I didn’t really believe in Christmas carols, but I could believe in them a little more if, like this, they pushed us a little closer to wonder, a little closer to gratitude. Even the hard years have some reason for celebration,

“I don’t think I’m good at it,” Boomer told me. “But when I’m with Sofia I’m not really thinking about whether or not I’m good at it, which is what makes it good.

But the older you get, the more you realize that, yes, there are all these things that link you to the past, and you’re using the same words and singing the same songs that have always been there for you, but each time, things have shifted, and you have to deal with that shift.

But we have to move forward like it’s up to us, together. I know it’s not as intense or immediate as it used to be—but that just means that instead of having only a present together, we’re having a past, present, and future all at once.”