Well-meaning people are sometimes the most dangerous.

At least you earned your belief in something...Most people around here just say they believe whatever their family believes. They don't bother thinking for themselves...And the less they know, the louder they believe it.

I've always felt like I have to put on different masks for people--be who they want or need me to be. With you, I don't have to think about it. I just... am. And somehow, you like me anyway.

She'd decided that if she was going to spend several days in close quarters with this guy, she ought to go out of her way to make sure he didn't get too attached to her. What better way to prevent that than by being herself?

Maybe just a case of one person's "normal" being another person's Twilight Zone.

To her, "above-average" had become only a small, yet frustrating step up from the mundane. Mediocrity with benefits.

For as long as she could remember, Angie had been slightly above-average--from her height and physical strength to her grades, intuition, and artistic capacity. She was athletic, but lacked the innate prowess of a competitive athlete. She was bright, but not a genius. Talented, but not elite. Good, but not best.

His attentive treatment of her had nothing to do with the presumption that she was weak, and everything to do with the conviction that she was valuable.

If she couldn't manage to be extraordinary by nature, she reasoned the next best thing would be to attempt something extraordinary.

Romantic love, I think, requires a degree of physical attraction, but devotion is needed to maintain it as an actual relationship. Physical attraction is a feeling you don't really have control over, but devotion is something that has to be chosen. So, ideally... I suppose it's passion combined with the commitment to value someone else completely above oneself.