You ready?" Evan asks, and he's looking at me, and I love his hair, I love his smile, I lo--"I Love You," I say, and as I watch his smile bloom I finally get how great those three little words are. I finally get what they really mean.

But the past couple of days I’ve missed you so much it’s felt like missing you is all I am.

Look at me. We aren´t them lauren. You´re not your mother or father any more than I´m my mother. You´re you and I´m me and I love you.

And now I see what has been there all along, what I've noticed but never truly understood until now. Eli is as uncertain as I am, as we all are. Life has surprised him like it has me. Has hurt him like it has me.

I'd forgotten how much feelings hurt.

All the things I've thought about love are true. It's beautiful and terrible and it doesn't make things perfect. It ends things, and it brings beginnings. This is mine.

I think the way I feel when I look at Evan comes from her. In pictures taken the day she married my dad, she was reckless, laughing, spinning around in circles. She looked like her whole world was him. She looked a kind of happy I can't even imagine. I don't want that. I don't want to be like that. I don' want to feel the way she did because I know what happens when you do. You love with your whole heart, with everything, and you wake up one morning and kiss someone good-bye the way you always do except you mean it as good-bye forever.