Macon, wet from the raindrops for the first time.

It was a promise she knew I might not be able to keep. But I made it anyway because I was going to find a way to make it true.

There were two kinds of people in our town. The stupid, and the stuck.

Knowing you don't have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out-more like, they figure themselves out-and everything gets real clear.

Even in the slippery blur of heat and arms and noise, Lena affected everything in her wake, a pull as powerful as the moon to the tides, or the planets to the sun. I was caught in her orbit, even as she pulled away from mine.

A little-known fact about me: I read all the time.

The toes of our ratty black sneakers touched.