You should have seen your face," she said, her breath hot in my ear. "Sa-woooon.

Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.

When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a colouring book, with the inside not yet completed.

It was amazing how you could get so far from where you'd planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.

But I always worked harder when I was up against something, or when someone assumed I couldn't succeed. That's what drove me, all those nights studying. The fact that so many figured I couldn't do it.

How weird that must be, to stay the same as everyone else changes.

Nothing like being scolded by a hippie.