We were both music-obsessed, each in our own way. If we didn't entirely understand the other person's obsession, it didn't matter, because we understood our own.

I force my eyes upward and look at Mia for the first time. She's still beautiful. Not in an obvious Vanessa LeGrande or Bryn Shraeder kind of way. In a quiet way that's always been devastating to me. Her hair, long and dark, is down now, swimming damply against her bare shoulders, which are still milky white and covered with the constellation of freckles that I used to kiss. The scar on her left shoulder, the one that used to be an angry red weld is silvery pink now. Almost like the latest rage in tattoo accessories. Almost pretty.

There’s a difference between losing something you knew you had and losing something you discovered you had. One is a disappointment. The other feels like losing a piece of yourself.

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.

So are you moving on now? Is that what brought you to the grand metropolis of Valladolid?” “No. The wind just blew me here.” “What? Like a plastic bag?” “I prefer to think of myself as a ship. Like a sailboat.

I'm also starting to wonder something else. If maybe the point of this crazy quest I'm on wasn't to help me find Willem. Maybe it was to help me find someone else entirely.

It's nice, this. The canal." He looks at me. "You." "I'll bet you say that to all the canals.