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.

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.

It was just perfect, just right all at once.

Sometimes love can be an ugly thing.

Sorry!' Dave's friend yelled when he saw me. 'That was my-' But i wasn't listening as,instead,i took every bit of the anger and stress of the last few minutes and days put it behind the ball, throwing it overhead at the basket as hard as i could. It went flying, hitting the backboard and banging through the netless hoop at full speed before shooting back out and nailing Dave Wade squarely on the forehead. And just like that, he was down.

It's hard to be nice when the rest of the world is so mean.

Because' I repeated, as a breeze blew over us, "sometimes things just happen. That aren't expected. Or on the list." "Such as?" he asked "I don't know," I said, frustrated. "That's the point. It would be out of the blue, taking us by surprise. Something we might not be prepared for." "But we will be prepared," he said, confused. "We'll have the list.