You can only actually help someone who wants to be helped.

I could hear her babbling away beside me, but I wasn't really paying attention. I could barely focus on anything. My nerve endings seemed to have come alive; they almost jangled with anticipation I was going to see Will. Whatever else, I had that. I could almost feel the miles between us shrinking, as if we were at two ends of some invisible elastic thread.

Real friends were the kind where you pick up where you'd left off, whether it be a week since you'd seen each other or two years.

​​​​​​You're going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. It always does feel strange to be knocked out of your comfort zone.

I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live.

But just as nature abhors a vacuum -- so does the human heart.

If you'd bothered to ask me, Clark, if you'd bothered to consult me just once about this so-called fun outing of ours, I could have told you. I hate horses, and horse racing. Always have. But you didn't bother to ask me. You decided what you thought you'd like me to do, and you went ahead and did it. You did what everyone else does. You decided for me.