I find that the more I depend on real life, the less interesting the story is. It's much more common for me to take something that almost-happened, or I wish had happened, and then follow that possibility.

You didn't fail. You just opted out. There's a difference.

So I learned another system: When in doubt, keep it out – out of earshot, out of the house – even if this meant, really, just keeping it in.

None of it meant anything, and all of it was important.

If he'd been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.

If you didn't love him, this never would have happened. But you did. And accepting that love and everything that followed it is part of letting it go.

But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.