I wanted to tell him so. Find the right words, string them together in the ideal way, knowing that here they would have the best chance of sounding perfect.

So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole.

There's this other half of him I don't know of, it's like he is trying to keep it a secret... if he would just let me inside so I can help.

I always wrote about girls that went to the beach and had that summer that changed everything. So I was interested in what it would be like to live in a tourist town where everyone has these life changing experiences, but your whole life is there.

It's funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you'd think.

This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.

I sat up, sliding them off, and the quiet around me did not, for once, seem empty and vast. Instead, for the first time in a while, it felt like it already was full.