As if he was beating me to the punch, his words living forever, while I was left speechless, no rebuttal, no words left to say.

But as was so often the case, it was the one person missing who you thought about more than the ones who were right in front of you.

There's something nice about the silence of a car ride in the dark, going home. When you were tired of the radio and conversation, and it was okay to just be alone with your thoughts and the road ahead. If you're that comfortable with someone, you don't have to talk.

Like so many before them, they didn't care that my dad was only the messenger. They still wanted to shoot him.

Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe Deb had picked up on this and it was why she'd pretty much talked nonstop since I'd approached her and asked for a ride. I'd barely had time to explain the situation before she had launched into a dozen stories to illustrate the point that Things Happened But People Were Okay in the End.

There was only so much space between us, not even a real distance if measured in miles or feet or even inches, all the things that told you how far you'd come or had left to go. But it was a big space, if only for me. And as I moved forward to him covering it, he waited there on the other side. It was only the last little bit I has to go, but in the end, I knew it would be all I would truly remember. So as I kissed him, bringing this summer and everything else full circle, I let myself fall, and was not scared of the ground I knew would rise up to meet me.

Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?" I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This." I said. And then I kissed him.