He walked out into the downpour, his hair getting instantly soaked, and I felt something. A tiny, warm click in my chest.

The splinter is this: I don’t think I’m in love with Liam. I think I’m in love with the idea of being chosen by someone like Liam. The shiny, interesting, romantic hero.

— Marleen. (No longer just a girl with a diary. A girl with a story.)

I’m not going to write “happily ever after.” That’s for fairy tales. This is real life.

My heart was a hummingbird.

But here’s the thing, Diary. The story isn’t about finding the one perfect person. It’s about the mess. The wrong turns. The boy with the untied shoelace who teaches you what you don’t want. The boy with the elbow patches who teaches you what you do.

Dear Diary,

Plot twist. A major one.

Maybe this is the one. Maybe.

He lent me his pen. A simple black Bic. I’m currently smelling it. It smells like possibilities.

He stopped drawing. He looked up, and his eyes were the exact color of a stormy sky. “Marleen,” he said, my whole name, like it was a secret. “I’ve been waiting for you to figure that out since third grade.”

I broke Liam’s heart today. He didn’t cry, but his crooked smile went completely straight. He said, “Was it the Sophia thing?”