We're on the other side of the fence now, Lena,' she says, tiredly, as she passes. "Don't you get it? You can't tell me what to feel.

I put my forehead on his collarbone, place one hand on his chest. Its rhythm reassures me: He is real, and he is now.

That's when I realized that certain moments go on forever. Even after they're over they still go on, even after you're dead and buried, those moments are lasting still, backward and forward, on into infinity. They are everything and everywhere all at once. They are the meaning.

And when we are with Alex, I might as well not be there. They speak in a language of whispers and giggles and secrets; their words are like a fairy-tale tangle of thorns, which place a wall between us.

Now, after so many years, I understand what the Coldness was and where it came from—this sense that everything is lost, and worthless, and meaningless.

We all need mantras, I guess - stories we tell ourselves to keep us going.

And in that moment, the wordless thing passed between us, the thing that wasn't quite love but was so close I could believe in it sometimes.