No," I snapped. "I mean, no. I'm answering. I'm just collecting my response." Another few seconds passed. Is there a time limit for this?" he asked. I shot him a look. "Just wondering.

It hadn't even occured to me that somebody would believe mine.

Like life isn't complicated enough. You should at least be able to follow the signs.

He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.

But something, somehow, had made all these paths converge. You couldn't find it on a checklist, or work it into the equation. It just happened.

In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.

Morning would come before we knew it. It always did. But we still had the night, and for now, we were together, so I just closed my eyes and drank it all in.