I didn’t need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back.

"Nothing," I said. "I’m just…" I couldn’t finish the sentence, didn’t know how to. "I’m just very, very fond of you."

She was not an adventure, she was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.

And since she drove to work every morning, I could only use the car on weekends. Well, weekends and the middle of the goddamned night.

I needed, I decided, to really know her, because I needed more to remember. Before I could begin the shameful process of forgetting the how and the why of her living and dying, I needed to learn it: How. Why. When. Where. What.

Because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.