"You have this soft natural beauty that just shines from you. You don´t need anything to make you sexier than you alredy are."

"You have nothing to prove to them. You haven´t let them down, they´ve let you down by making you feel inadequate, as if how you choose to live your life isn´t good enough for them. If I ever have children, I would make sure they knew how proud of them I was, no matter which path they chose."

"I´ve seen the sort of person you are, kind, compassionate, fiery. You´re friendly and warm. You´ve made friends in the last few days, which is more than I´ve done since I´ve been here. You don´t have trouble connecting with people, but I think you held yourself back because you knew these men weren´t right for you. The right man would wait for you to be ready to sleep with him, not get angry because you made him wait. The right man would make your first time special, not pound away at you when you´re lying there scared to death. And the right man would be patient enough to work through the barriers you´ve made to protect yourself, even if that meant pulling your walls down slowly brick by brick because they can see that girl on the other side is worth the wait."

He had grown up with parents who told him he could be whatever he wanted to be, that if he wanted to be an astronaut or a pilot or a florist or an actor, then he could do that. They told him he was brilliant at everything he turned his hand to, that they were proud of him every single day. That´s what parents were supposed to do, and he had always taken it for granted that all children had that, but clearly Darcy hadn´t.