I told myself – as I’ve told myself before – that the body shuts down when the pain gets too bad, that consciousness is temporary, that this will pass. But just like always, I didn’t slip away. I was left on the shore with the waves washing over me, unable to drown.

In the contemporary world where things fall apart, and the centre cannot hold, you have to imagine a community where there is no centre. Hank, at the end of this year I started thinking that a lot of life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck.

Nothing has ever looked like that ever in all of human history.

We gotta do something about this frigging swing set,' he said. 'I'm telling you, it's ninety percent of the problem.

I couldn't hear a thing in the world but you. And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it's hot and dead quiet again, and I love you still.

The act of leaning in to kiss someone, or asking them, is fraught with the possibility of rejection, so the person least likely to get rejected should do the leaning in or the asking.

It felt like everything was rising up in me, like I was drowning in this weirdly painful joy, but I couldn't say it back. I just looked at him and let him look at me until he nodded, lips pursed and turned away, placing the side of his head against the window.