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

I like French fries," I say. I like French fries? I sound like a slow child in a made-for-TV movie.

What is the real question is not whether to be, but how to be?

I can’t imagine what it would be like to have had her company in my head—the comfort that would’ve brought.

I can keep picking small fights, or brave the big one. Time to screw my courage. Or go down trying.

You're just trying on different identities, like everyone in those Shakespeare plays. And the people we pretend at, they're already in us. That's why we pretend them in the first place.

What would you do if you had to choose?