You could hold me and I could hold you. And it would be so peaceful. Completely peaceful. Like the feeling of sleep, but awake in it together.

Someday no one will remember that she ever existed, I wrote in my notebook, and then, or that I did. Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow. In the beginning, she had haunted me, haunted my dreams, but even now, just weeks later, she was slipping away, falling apart in my memory and everyone else's, dying again.

I always wondered if there was a purpose to the universe, if there was a plan, if there was some sort of organizing factor, hopefully that I played a role in.

Our fearlessness shall be our secret weapon.

Being a person, I had come to realize, is a communal activity. Dogs know how to be dogs. But people do not know how to be people unless and until they learn from other people.

You don't want romantic advice from me, you want romantic advice from Edward Cullen. I completely understand but he is completely unavailable right now and I'll tell you why. He doesn't exist.

And as paralyzing and upsetting as all the never agains were, the final leaving felt perfect. Pure. The most distilled possible form of liberation. Everything that mattered except one lousy picture was in the trash, but it felt so great. I started jogging, wanting to put even more distance between myself and school. It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.