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

Well, it's New Year's now but I don't feel that way anymore. I wonder if you do either. Something's happening to me. It's like I'm shrinking smaller and smaller and I can't stp it. There's just os much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it. When you left it was like there was this huge gap to fill, but instead of spreading wide enough to do it I just fell right in, and I'm still falling. Like I'm half-asleep, and I can't wake up, can't wake up.

Instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her secrets, while keeping our own to ourselves, as always.

It was such a weird thing how a breakup stretched much wider than you expected. You didn't just lose a person, but their entire world as well.

The true story...is the realization that no time in your life is ever perfect, that even the best memories have cracks you might not see.

Change is inevitable, though," he replied. "As is disappointment. Best to get used to it now.

I'd been running for years: there was nothing scarier, to me, than to just be still with someone. And yet, there on that dark road, going home, I was.