I want to know." His words are a whisper, barely audible. "I want to know with you.

He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief.

No wonder the regulators decided on segregation of boys and girls: Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare, this feeling angry and self-conscious and confused and annoyed all the time.

There is only what you want and what happens. There is only grabbing on and holding tight in the darkness.

The last laugh, the last cup of coffee, the last sunset, the last time you jump through a sprinkler, or eat an ice-cream cone, or stick your tongue out to catch a snowflake. You just don't know.

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.

When you love someone, when you care for someone, you have to do it through the good and the bad. Not just when you're happy and it's easy.