I would have thought this would make me feel better.. getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn't. Not at all.

It took a lot of work to be perfect.

It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.

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.

Nothing like being scolded by a hippie.

Once, this had been the life I’d wanted. Even chosen. Now, though, I couldn’t believe that there had been a time when this kind of monotony and silence, this most narrow of existences, had been preferable. Then again, once, I’d never known anything else.

You’re always a kid around your parents… Unless they’re acting like children. Then you don’t get the chance.