Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you'd planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even jsut alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can.

I would have thought this would make me feel better.. getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn't. Not at all.

Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible

I was woundering what he would say, what word could sum me up right then, when i saw the lights come across his face, blaringly yellow, and suddenly he was brighter, and brighter, and i asked him what was happening, what was wrong. I remember only that light, so strong it spilled across my shoulders, and lit up his face, and how scared he looked as something big and loud hit my door, sending glass shattering across me, little sparks catching the light like diamonds, as they fell, with me, into the dark.

This felt right. Not just leaving, but how I was doing it. Without regret, without second guessing. And with Wes right there, holding the door open for me as I walked out into the light.

Then I'd crawl back into bed, smelling her all around me, and tell myself that next time, I would lock that window. But I never did.

I was actually pretty miserable in high school. I couldn't wait for it to be over. And when it finally was, I remember sitting at graduation with all these classmates getting nostalgic and emotional already and all I could think was, "Get me out of here. I never want to see you people again." So it's ironic that I spend half my day putting myself back there by choice [while writing].