But it was definitely a car trailing me and quickly I prepared myself for a great dash. I began quickening my step and when it stopped alongside me I could stand it no longer. "My father's a cop and he'll kill you," I screeched without looking. "No, he's a barrister," I heard Michael Andretti say in a calm voice, "and he'll kill you if you don't get into this car.

I'm sorry," he says, "for that time I kissed you at that party and for that time at the wedding and more than anything for the thousand times that I wanted to and didn't have the guts to.

I'm scared to die," I whispered as Michael walked in. "He was scared to live," he said kissing my forehead.

I think you'll just have to wait for that Loser of the Month tiara a little while longer while I wear it, with pride, around my neighborhood.

She misses him more now than when he was away

What happens when she's not my memory anymore? What happens when she's not around to tell me about his belt leaving scars across my two-year-old brother's face or when he whacked her so hard that she lost her hearing for a week? Who'll be my memory?" Santangelo doesn't miss a beat. "I will. Ring me." "Same," Raffy says. I look at him. I can't even speak because if I do I know I'll cry but I smile and he knows what I'm thinking.

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted. It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said.