After the group vet appointment--during which Lyle scratched the vet, the vet tech, and some poor woman minding her own business in the waiting room--we went back to Sabrina's and re-released the cats to their natural habitat.

Because you have to just go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to.

But for now, I just sat there on the bed and listened to my song. The one that had been written for me by a man who knew me not at all, now sung by the one who knew me best.

I wondered if it was really because he cared about me, or if now I was just another challenge.

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home.

“Well," Isaid finally, knowing he was waiting, “you make me laugh.” He nodded. “And?” “You're pretty good-looking." ""Pretty good-looking? I called you beautiful." "You want to be beautiful?" I asked him. "Are you saying I'm not?"

So maybe it wasn't the fairy tale. But those stories weren't real anyway. Mine were.