In the calculus of feelings, you never really know how one person's absence will affect you more than another's.

You just work through it. You just hang in there.

As the lightness buoys me, I wonder if maybe she was right. Maybe it's not about looking hot for guys, but about feeling like a place acknowledged you, winked at you, accepted you. It's strange because, of all the people in all the cities, I'd have thought that to Parisians I'd be invisible, but apparently I'm not. Apparently in Paris, not only can I skate, but I practically qualify for the Olympics!

It's funny the things you think you're scared of until they're upon you, and then you're not.

Anything can happen in one day.

By that point, it’ll have been more than year since I met Lulu. Any sane person would say it’s too late. It already felt too late that first day, when I woke up in the hospital. But even so, I’ve kept looking. I’m still looking.

And something tells me if it matters, maybe it shouldn't be easy.