In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.

I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.

He's very nice. He's something I replied. She considered this zipping her purse shut. Then she said Well everyone is. Everyone is Something. For some reason that stuck with me simple and yet not every since she'd said it. It was like a puzzle as well two vague words with one clear one between them.

I think part of the problem sometimes is that there's so much happening in my books, to whittle it down into a single script is hard.

But it was okay not to fit in everywhere, as long as you did somewhere.

But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.

There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.