This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spoke aloud. I should have been with him; she should have left him alone. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense.

It's always very pure, that last moment before an ugly, unsettling truth hits someone. The most stark of before-and-afters.

The language of solace, and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

I knew this feeling, the 2 a.m. loneliness that I'd practically invented.

Odd how it was so easy for a stranger to assume such familiarity. Especially when those who were supposed to know you best often didn't, not at all.

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

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.