It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.

I'm remembering how this works. How life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong or could go worng, and complaints about the world around you. How a person you're excited about can remind you there's stuff going on beyond... routine oil changes and homework. Stuff that matters. Stuff to look forward to.

It's a jagged thing in my throat, how much I miss her.

I'm still going to love you, always. And in the rock-paper-scissors of life, love is rock. fear, anger, everthing else...no contest.

The one thing that could never die or be buried was my loyalty to Cameron for everything he’d done for me and what we’d been through together, even if that loyalty was a ghost.

. . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.

I had them all fooled into believing I was normal and well-adjusted, a rock of sensibility who could always be counted on to have a positive attitude.