She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive.

I have boobs!" Chloe said again, a bit too loudly— she'd already had a couple of mini bottles at the Spot. "My boobs are great, goddammit. You know that? They're fantastic! My boobs are amazing.

Obviously it won't all run smoothly. But it's important to awknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn fromt them.

You want to take me to a movie?" I asked. "Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.

Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.

Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground solid beneath us. But then something crossed his face, a thought, a hesitation, and he shifted slightly. Not now. Not yet. It was something I'd done so often - weighing what I could afford to risk, right at that moment - that I recognized it instantly. It was like looking in a mirror.

Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to remember to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning; there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.