But then I think about my sister and what a shell-less turtle she was and how she wanted me to be one too. C'mon, Lennie, she used to say to me at least ten times a day. C'mon Len. And that makes me feel better, like it's her life rather than her death that is now teaching me how to be, who to be.

For the first time in our lives, I’m somewhere she can’t find, and I don’t have the map to give her that leads to me.

Remember how it was when we kissed? Armfuls and armfuls of light thrown right at us. A rope dropping down from the sky. How can the word love and the word life even fit in the mouth?

The first thing I notice is the sky, so full of blue and the kind of brilliant white clouds that make you ecstatic to have eyes. Nothing can go wrong under this sky.

That's exactly it—I am crazy sad, and somewhere deep inside, all I want is to fly.

In one split second I saw everything I could be, everything I want to be. And all that I'm not.

I always imagined music trapped inside my clarinet, not trapped inside of me. But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks?