exemplar, n. It's always something we have to negotiate- the face that my parents are happy, and yours have never been. I have something to live up to, and if I fail, I still have a family to welcome me home. You have a storyline to rewrite, and a lack of faith that it can ever be done. You love my parents, I know. But you never get too close. You never truly believe there aren't bad secrets underneath.

I measure the moment in the heartbeats I skip

She stays in the same spot, anchored by the profound, desperate loneliness of a bad relationship.

My pride shut me up, my hurt shut me down, and together they ganged up on my hope and let her get away.

You have to believe there are kisses and laughs and risks worth taking.

When is a night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it? Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply realize that you have to? When the club closes or when you everyone leaves? "It's over when you decide it's over," she says. "When you call it a night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky.

Fate has a strange way of making plans.