I know you loved her, but it's okay to let it go now. You know that, don't you? You've got to be able to let it go.

Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you two make me believe that true love really exists. And that even the darkest hours can't take that away.

Does trust have to be earned. Or is it simply a matter of faith?

For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget.

I suppose more than anything, it's the way of life in this part of the country that influences my writing. In Eastern North Carolina, with the exception of Wilmington, most people live in small towns.

Too many people seem to believe that silence was a void that needed to be filled, even if nothing important was said.