I trailed off and he didn't push me to finish. I was finding that I liked that.

Their words, like the music, had the potential to be endless.

It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.

During the long stretches of quiet two-lane highway, with the sun setting in the distance, it was somehow easier to say things aloud, and regardless of what was said, we just kept moving toward that horizon.

Call it crazy, or just chicken salad.

This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spoke aloud.

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.