the missing piece my breath my heart my memory me the other half the missing half

I may have been a Wayward, but my way was full of people who loved me. They were the only way I knew

It smelled like aging wood and creosote, plastic book covers, and old paper. Old paper, which my mom used to say was the smell of time itself.

Dig deep. Find your way to your soul.

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—

I could remember the details as if it had happened yesterday, even though it was hard to believe some of it had happened at all. Funerals were tricky like that. And life, I guess. The important parts you blocked out altogether, but the random, slanted moments haunted you, replaying over and over in your mind.

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