But sometimes you lose. Nothing you can do but admit it. -Eli

The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.

Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to remember to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning; there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.

It wasn’t so much that I was positive. I just wasn’t fully subscribing to such a negative way of thinking anymore.

call it crazy, or just chicken salad. But within reason, or without it i was in it too.

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.

You just looked..." she said, searching for the word, "taken, you know? Plus you hardly reacted to Wes. I mean, you did alittle, but nothing like most girls. It was a little swoon. Not a sa-woon, you know?" I said, "Sa-woon? Oh, come on," she said shaking her head. "Even a blind girl could tell he is amazing.