Love is a kind of possession. It’s a poison.

My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

I don't know whether these feelings - this thing growing inside of me - is something horrible and sick or the best thing that's ever happened to me. Either way, I can't stop it. I've lost control. And the truly sick thing is that despite everything, I'm glad.

I don't understand how everything changes, how the layers of your life get buried. Impossible. At some point, at some time, we must all explode.

Fred is officially the mayor of Portland now.

I still wanted to know why. As though somebody was going to answer that for me, as though any answer would be satisfying.

My stomach gets that hollowed-out feeling. It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart.