...he makes me feel out of control and out of my head. He is exhilarating and terrifying. I see and feel him everywhere, and I'm always grasping for equilibrium even when he's not there... I feel like I'm always falling in love, falling and falling and falling.

I thought Marcus was going to be in my life forever. Then I thought I was wrong. Now he’s back. But this time I know what’s certain: Marcus will be gone again, and back again and again and again because nothing is permanent. Especially people. Strangers become friends. Friends become lovers. Lovers become strangers. Strangers become friends once more, and over and over. Tomorrow, next week, fifty years from now, I know I’ll get another one-word postcard from Marcus, because this one doesn’t have a period signifying the end of the sentence. Or the end of anything at all.

The minute our correspondence becomes obligatory, there's no point in keeping touch at all.

I almost can’t believe I’m going to make myself vulnerable to him again. But what is love but the most extreme and exquisite form of risk perception? I know that relationships don’t last. And yet, with him, the risk of not being with him is much worse than any other hurt I can imagine.

Most people talk when they have nothing to say. I’m not talking because I have too much to say. None of which I’d want you to hear.

And yet I know I am too young, that we're too young, for me to live my life only as it relates to you. If you had asked me to marry you the night you first told me about your acceptance, I would have embraced Princeton as part of a larger plan that involved me. I probably would have reacted differently. I might even had said yes. Alas, you didn't ask me then. You made plans for your future without me in mind, And that's okay. But how can you now ask me to arrange my life around you?

So everything we believe about happiness is wrong," I said. He nodded. Everything?" I asked, when what I meant was, Everything? Including you? Including me? And Marcus, being Marcus, knew what I really wanted to know, and answered my silent, more significant question. He held up his hand to shield the rays and looked me in the eyes. Almost.