In some cases, she was actively trying not to make friends, though she usually stopped short of being rude. (Uptight, tense, and mildly misanthropic? Yes. Rude? No.)

Eleanor hadn't written him a letter. It was a postcard. GREETINGS FROM THE LAND OF 10,000 LAKES it said on the front. Park turned it over and recognized her scratchy handwriting. It filled his head with song lyrics. He sat up. He smiled. Something heavy and winged took off from his chest. Eleanor hadn't written him a letter, it was a postcard. Just three words long.

God, his chin. She wanted to make an honest woman of his chin. She wanted to lock it down.

There was just no fear in her.

Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing you had to do to knock some sense into yourself? Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing that showed you which way was up?

You don't know when you're twenty-three. You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten - in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems. She didn't know at twenty-three.

It's our last chance. No. No, I can't... I, no, I need to believe that it isn't our last chance... Eleanor? Can you hear me? I need you to believe it, too.