Everything's uglier close up," she said. "Not you," I answered.

Meriwether Lewis's last words were, 'I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.' I don't doubt that it is, but it cannot be much harder than being left behind.

People talk about the courage of cancer patients, and I do not deny that courage. I had been poked and stabbed and poisoned for years, and still I trod on. But make no mistake: In that moment, I would have been very, very happy to die.

And yet still I worried. I like being a person. I wanted to keep at it. Worry is yet another side effect of dying.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.

But I had to kill you, because the only other possible ending was us doing it, which I wasn't really emotionally ready to write about at ten.' 'Fair enough,' I say. 'But in the revision, I want to get some action.

You're funny, and you're smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.