Erin McCahan

Dream of me," he said.Dream of you? I'm doing that while I'm awake.

Someday, I will be brave enough to say these things to you in person. For now, I remain in happy, quiet contemplation over you and can say tonight that I just might love you. Or could someday.

Come dance with me," he says, taking my hand, and someday I'll explain to him that I already am.

Need I say more?''No, because you're wrong, and I'd hate for you to keep embarrassing yourself.

It's easier to hate than to hurt.

How can Sophie hate Josh tonight when Friday morning she loved him?' I ask. What I mean is How can I have had such strong feelings for Ethan when now I don't know what I feel aside from overwhelming mortification?

Good becomes perfect, but perfect is an illusion. And illusions are like all spells__emporary and soon broken. And when that happens, feelings change.

I'm not entirely sure there is a formula for this,' I say. But I wish there were. I would have followed it, plugging in all my data for x and all of Ethan's for y. And I would have worked out the results before involving my emotions, and I wouldn't feel as I feel now--like I've been dumped for real by an imaginary guy.

I don__ think I have as many friends as I thought I did, not close ones, not many who I connect with on that deep level of language that doesn__ just allow us to be ourselves with each other but allows us to be understood, even when we__e not saying anything.Silence__wkward or comfortable__s a language too. Awkward silence screams, __e have nothing in common._ Comfortable silence proves just how much we do.