I cry for everything I abandoned and because I, too, have been left behind -- by Alex, by my mom, by time that has cut through our worlds and separated us.

The rules of Panic are simple. Anyone can enter. But only one person will win.

The Story of Solomon is the only way I know how to explain. And then, in smaller letters: Forgive me.

He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.

Most of the time-- 99 percent of the time-- you just don't know how and why the threads are looped together, and that's okay. Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens. Do nothing and everything explodes.

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.

My parents were pretty liberal, but they were still parents. I definitely had my teenage rebellion.