It doesn't matter, anyway, why you like me. Just that you do.

Everyone laughed, and just like that, the conversation shifted, jumping to another topic. It was fast and furious, the talking, the emotions, the back-and-forth and forth-and-back. I realized that if I tried to focus on it too much, I got overwhelmed. So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.

The way I see it," she continued, "is that some things are just meant to be the way they are.

The language of solace, and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything. "Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste." "Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.

During this time we've been apart, it's you I've thought of when I'm at my weakest, and you who have pulled me through.

Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.' Are those the only options?' Not always. Just sometimes.