People loved you in the way they knew how - and often it was not the way you knew. Or needed.

Kevin refilled my plastic cup with more box wine. I smiled thanks. Kevin smiled welcome. Jake kicked my ankle.

How did people get over this? They obviously did. Every day someone fell in love with the wrong person and had to pack up all their fragile, misguided hopes and unwanted affection, and move on to the next picnic table.

And I thought maybe I didn't need to worry about my heart anymore because it had stopped beating a couple of seconds earlier, and I was still sitting there living and breathing-though admittedly I wasn't feeling much of anything.

Peter is ... adjusting. He's back in school, and he's doing quite well. I wish you could find it in your heart to forgive him." "I've got this funny resentful streak about people who try to kill me.

I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Get your facts straight, and then you can distort them as much as you like.

I thought again how odd it was to be on formal terms with someone you had once permitted to lick your ears.