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.

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.

Total commitment. You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?

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

After all, it's all kinds of things that make up a life, right? The big, like falling in love and spending time with your family, and the little....like blow drying your hair, applying concealer, and cursing those magazine inserts. It all counts. It has to.

But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.

In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.