I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing].

Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless.

I looked at the sweatshirt again. "'You swim' is a philosophy?" He shrugged. "Better than 'you sink', right?

That sucks, though," Wes said finally, his voice low. "You're just setting yourself up to fail, because you'll never get everything perfect." "Says who?" He just looked at me. "The world," he said, gesturing all around us, as if this party, this deck encompassed it all. "The universe. There's just no way. And why would you want everything to be perfect, anyway?" "I don't want everything to be perfect," I said. Just me, I thought. Somehow. "I just want—

It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovered--so many locks not enough keys.

My dad is a retired Shakespeare professor, my mother a retired classicist. Suffice to say I grew up in a house full of books, where reading was encouraged if not required.

Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overtakes … blotting out the future.