The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present. Yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.

Say I'm a bird! Say it! Say it now!" "You're a bird." "Now say you're a bird too." "If you're a bird, I'm a bird.

As Confucius once said, 'He who does nothing is the one who does nothing.'" Gabby pondered the words, the furrowed her brow. "did Confucius really say that?" Sunglasses in place, Stephanie managed the tiniest of shrugs. "No, but who cared? The point is, they handled, and most likely they found some sort of self-satisfaction in their industrious-ness. Who am I to deprive them of that?

When we first met, I didn't want to get involved with anyone. I didn't have the time or energy, and I wasn't sure that I was ready for it. But you were so good to me, and I got swept up in that. And little by little, I found myself falling in love with you.

Now it was coming to an end, and it was like he was watching the last flicker of light wink out in the darkness of an endless tunnel.

Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She'd believed in it once too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kinds of what if questions that could never be answered.

Traveling has less to do with seeing things than experiencing them.