I'd been running for years: there was nothing scarier, to me, than to just be still with someone. And yet, there on that dark road, going home, I was.

I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.

Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground solid beneath us. But then something crossed his face, a thought, a hesitation, and he shifted slightly. Not now. Not yet. It was something I'd done so often - weighing what I could afford to risk, right at that moment - that I recognized it instantly. It was like looking in a mirror.

Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once.

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.

Nothing like being scolded by a hippie.

But those words were only the middle of the story. There was a beginning here, too.