She let herself love me for three minutes. Can three minutes last forever? I ask myself, but already know the answer. Probably not, I reply. But maybe they last long enough.

Our footsteps run, and I don't want them to end. I want to run and laugh and feel like this forever. I want to avoid any awkward moment when the realness of reality sticks its fork into our flesh, leaving us standing there, together. I want to stay here, in this moment, and never go to other places, where we don't know what to say or what to do.

It's a lot easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.

Make sure you live,' she said. 'As decent as you can. I know you'll make mistakes, but sometimes you're meant to, okay?

Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.

Believe it or not--it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.

A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn't make a winner a fighter.