Are you coming down with something?" Mom asks. And just for the tiniest of seconds, I wonder what would happen if I told them the truth. That school is nothing like I imagined it would be. That I'm not the girl in the catalog at all. I'm not a Happy College Student. I don't know who I am. Or maybe I do know who I am and I just don't want to be her anymore.
Gayle FormanStanding here, in this quiet house where I can hear the birds chirping out back, I think Iโm kind of getting the concept of closure. Itโs no big dramatic before-after. Itโs more like that melancholy feeling you get at the end of a really good vacation. Something special is ending, and youโre sad, but you canโt be that sad because, hey, it was good while it lasted, and thereโll be other vacations, other good times.
Gayle FormanYou know, I thought about that a lot these last couple of years," She says in a choked voice. "About who was there for you. Who held your hand while you grieved for all that you'd lost?
Gayle FormanFor the hundredth time tonight, Iโm back with Lulu, on Jacquesโs barge, the improbably named Viola. Sheโd just toldme the story of double happiness and we were arguing over the meaning. Sheโd thought it meant the luck of the boy getting the job and the girl. But Iโd disagreed. It was the couplet fitting together, the two halves finding each other. It was love. But maybe we were both wrong, and both right. Itโs not either or, not luck or love. Not fate or will. Maybe for double happiness, you need both.
Gayle Forman