All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.

Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you'd planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even jsut alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can.

You're not the kind of person who smiles for nothing, Colie. I have to earn every one.

And trying to break it down this way, to minor and major offenses, maybes and what-ifs, was like arguing over the origin of cracks in a broken egg. It was done. How it happened didn't matter anymore.

Hollis " I said "you're messing with me right now aren't you You're in Paris or somewhere and just-" "What " he replied. "No This is the real deal. Here I'll prove it." There was a muffled noise followed by some static. Then I heard my mother recite at a distance in her most droll flat tone "Yes. It is true. Your brother is in love and in my kitchen.

I'd been running for years: there was nothing scarier, to me, than to just be still with someone. And yet, there on that dark road, going home, I was.

It wasn’t so much that I was positive. I just wasn’t fully subscribing to such a negative way of thinking anymore.