I mean, at first, it was kind of disappointing. But people recover from disappointment. Otherwise we'd all be hanging from nooses. Right?

It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder ― or impossible ― to lose.

It's only advice. Ignore it if you want.

When he stopped walking and kissed me a few minutes later, it was like time had stopped, with the air, my heart, and the world all so still. And it was this I remembered every other time I was with Marshall.

Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential.

"I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything?"

I thought of all the times we'd been together, how I kept coming closer, then retreating, while he stayed right where he was. A constant in a world where few, if any, really existed.