the wheel of fate crushes us all

Because life goes on, L. The birds do their thing, and the bees do theirs. Seeds get scattered, and everything grows back.

I pulled Lena's necklace out of my pocket. I let the charms roll around in my palm, but they were tangled and meaningless without her. The necklace was heavier than I imagined, or maybe it was the weight of my conscience.

Wait, I got it. We, uh, won the battle and lost the war, or was it the other way around? 'Cause around here, it's hard to tell sometimes.

The good and the bad, the sugar and the salt, the kicks and the kisses—what’s come before and what will come after, you and me—

The poems are all wrong. It's a bang, a really big bang. Not a whimper. And sometimes gold can stay.

In history, she wasn't there while we reenacted the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Mr. Lee tried to make me argue the Pro-Slavery side, most likely as punishment for some future liberally minded paper I was bound to write.