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.

Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong.

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.

If only you could really use a fail-proof system to know who was worth keeping and who needed to be thrown away. It would make it so much easier to move through the world, picking and choosing what connections to make, or whether to make any at all.

Quiet and incredible. I really envy that.

Right now, though, I wanted not to think forward or backward, but only to lose myself in the words.

How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you? I had no idea. More than ever, though, right then I had to believe the answer would just come to me.