Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.

There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.

Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials and ideas?" She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled face so solemn, as if she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.

All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.

In the end, though, maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.

I always have a goal, even if I keep it to myself. It allows me to keep pushing myself.

I drove off, with my friends watching me go, all of them grouped on Lissa's hood. As I pulled onto the road, I glanced into the rearview and saw them: they were waving, hands moving through the air, their voices loud, calling out after me. The square of that mirror was like a frame, holding this picture of them saying good-bye, pushing me forward, before shifting gently out of sight, inch by fluid inch, as I turned away.