It's always very pure, that last moment before an ugly, unsettling truth hits someone. The most stark of before-and-afters.

It's still a memory worth having, even if it's not exactly what you imagined.

Watching him, I thought, not for the first time that night, that maybe it should have felt strange to be with him, here, now. And yet it didn’t, at all. That was one of the things about the night. Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn’t so much once you passed a certain hour. It was like the dark just evened it all out somehow.

But I'd long ago learned not to be picky in farewells. They weren't guaranteed or promised. You were lucky, more than blessed, if you got a good-bye at all.

It all depends on how you choose to live it. It's like forever, always changing.

talk was cheap and useless. Action was what mattered. And me, I was moving. Now, again, always.

Fifteen minutes later, a meeting was called. "Okay, look." Deb's face was dead serious. "I know I just joined this project, and I don't want to offend anyone. But I'm going to be honest. I think you've been going about this all wrong." "I'm offended," Dave told her flatly.