The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly.

It was like discovering that some part of you wasn't yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn't claim.

It didn't make you noble to step away from something that wasn't working, even if you thought you were the reason for the malfunction. Especially then. It just made you a quitter. Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.

From this distance, in the dimness, the model looked surreal, made up of parts filled with buildings, bordered by long stretches of empty space. It reminded me of the way cities and towns look when you are flying at night. You can't make out much. But the places where people have come together, and stayed, are collections of tiny lights, breaking up the darkness.

I wanted to be somewhere else ... Someplace where the sight of me sobbing would tie me to no one and no one to me.

But when you're alone in the world, really alone, you have no choice but to be open to suggestions.

There was no way to take the story back, folding it neatly into the place I'd kept it all this time. No matter what else happened, from here on out, I would always remember Wes, because with this telling, he'd become part of that story, of my story, too.