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.

I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I’m not allowed a say in yours? But I had promised.

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.

There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, where time stalls and slips, where life---real life---seems to exist at one remove.

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.

There is a whole lot more to life than winning.