If nothing else, now we knew where to find each other, even if only time would tell if either of us would ever come looking.

Life has a way of disregarding even your best intentions.

So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.

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.

I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.

As far as I was concerned, we'd come to a draw: I hadn't wanted to come, and she didn't want me to leave. We were even. But I knew my mother wouldn't see it that way. Lately, we didn't seem to see anything the same.

Every book teaches me something about my process, and they are all challenging in one way or another.