It's a choice, Annabel. And if you make the wrong one, you have only yourself to blame when there are consequences.

So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.

When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.

I thought of all the times we'd been together, how I kept coming closer, then retreating, while he stayed right where he was. A constant in a world where few, if any, really existed.

It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.

I wasn't sure what I expected her to do or say to this. It was all new to me from that second on. But clearly, she'd been there before. It was obvious in the easy way she shrugged off her bag, letting it fall with a thump onto the sand, before sitting down beside me. She didn't pull me close for a big bonding hug or offer up some saccharine words of comfort, both of which would have sent me running for sure. Instead she gave me nothing but her company, realizing even before I did this that this, in fact, was just what I needed.

I honestly don't have many creative outlets. I'm not crafty - although motherhood has forced me to try to be - and I can only draw trees, beaches, and clouds. I'm a so-so cook except for deviled eggs. Writing has always been the one thing I feel that I am pretty good at doing. But it's enough, thank goodness.