Once, she'd been a pro at decompressing, loved to sit on the back deck of the beach house in one of our splintery Adirondack chairs for hours at a time, staring at the ocean. She never had a book or the paper or anything else to distract her. Just the horizon, but it kept her attention, her gaze unwavering. Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about being out there, the world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and out.

The truth about forever is that it is happening right now.

It's still a memory worth having, even if it's not exactly what you imagined.

Lifestyle is an terrible, unpleasant put to not have a very finest buddy.

And for one second, it was like I could feel the timing clicking together, finally pieces falling into place.

I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell anyone. As long as I didn't say it aloud, it wasn't real.

I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.