And on the last day, the bad days become so difficult to recall, because one way or another, she had made a life here, just as I had. The town was paper, but the memories were not. All the things I’d done here, all the love and pity and compassion and violence and spite, kept welling up inside me.

We acknowledge that being the person God made you cannot separate you from God's love.

All at once, I couldn’t figure out why I was methodically tossing a spherical object through a toroidal object. It seemed like the stupidest thing I could possibly be doing.

I'll just go over to the Duke's," I said. "Her parents already told me I could stay there. I'll go over there and open all my presents, and talk about how my parents neglect me, and then maybe the Duke will give me some of her presents because she feels so bad about how my mom doesn't love me.

Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou

I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.

And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future—you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.