He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.

It is kind of hard to hold a lot in. But for me… it’s sometimes even harder to let it out.

Teenagers are a great audience and they are fearless about asking what they want to know.

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.

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.

Let's just start and see what happens.

I drove off, with my friends watching me go, all of them grouped on Lissa's hood. As I pulled onto the road, I glanced into the rearview and saw them: they were waving, hands moving through the air, their voices loud, calling out after me. The square of that mirror was like a frame, holding this picture of them saying good-bye, pushing me forward, before shifting gently out of sight, inch by fluid inch, as I turned away.