I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand

Who would have thought something that happened that long ago could have such power?

But I know I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead — in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death — the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human — feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light - all of it part of navigating the unknown.

I would like to tell you that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe.

Hey, Ocean Eyes,” my father said. “Where’d you go on us?

How to Commit the Perfect Murder" was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.

I couldn't help but think, as I watched him, of the barrels of toxic fluids that had accrued behind Hal's bike shop where the scrub lining the railroad tracks had offered local companies enough cover to dump a stray contaner or two. Everything had been sealed up, but things were beginning to leak out. I had come to both pity and respect Len in the years since my mother left. He followed the physical to try to understand things that were impossible to comphrehend. In that, I could see, he was like me.