I want to ask him where that kitchen is. Where he's from. But he seems guarded. Or maybe it's me. Maybe making friends is a specific skill, and I missed the lesson.

The audience keeps singing, keeps making my case, and I just keep strumming until I get close enough to see her eyes. And then I start singing the chorus. Right to her. And she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people out here, the only ones who know what’s happening. Which is that this song we’re all singing together is being rewritten. It’s no longer an angry plea shouted to the void. Right here, on this stage, in front of eighty thousand people, it’s becoming something else. This is our new vow.

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.

Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind.

In the middle of L.A.'s sunny non-winter, I need to sit in a dark closet to feel right.

In the lead-up to the launch of my new book I Was Here, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about depression and suicide and mental health and YA dealing with such intense matters. What I haven’t seen discussed is kittens.

Are you happy in your misery? Resting peaceful in desolation? It’s the final tie that binds us The sole source of my consolation" “blue