What does it feel like to be infected?" "I-- I can't describe it." I force the words out. Can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe. His skin smells like smoke from a wood fire, like soap, like heaven. I imagine tasting his skin; I imagine biting his lips. "I want to know." His words are a whisper, barely audible. "I want to know with you.

I wonder whether she was sorry for leaving us behind.

I know that the whole point—the only point—is to find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.

But it's not about knowing. It is simply about going forward.

The house, the pond, the tree-it was all both overwhelmingly familiar and different from what she remembered-smaller and shabbier, somehow. It was like waking up to find that your reflection in the mirror had aged overnight, or had sprouted a new mole: You were forced to admit that things changed, whether you gave them permission to or not.

It was as though the darkness was a sheet of raw cookie dough and someone had just taken a cookie cutter and made a child-sized shape out of it.

That's the thing about best friends. That's what they do. They keep you from spinning off the edge.