I wanted to tell you that I just--I miss you. And maybe that sounds ridiculous--like we barely know each other, but between the emails and texts and... everything else, I felt like we did. Like we do. and I miss--I don't know how else to say it--I miss both of you.

Lucas was fifteen minutes late to class on Friday, and we had a pop quiz first thing - which he missed. My first thought was how irresponsible it was to miss a quiz… and then I remembered that I missed the midterm. I couldn't exactly point any fingers.

It was as though he didn't exist, and then suddenly, he was everywhere.

No matter what happened to any individual person, life was going on elsewhere. The first time Kennedy kissed me, it stood to reason that at the same time, other people were splitting up. And the night Kennedy broke my heart, somewhere - maybe right there in my dorm, other people were falling in love.

I watched him pull his t-shirt over his head. I could put hin on replay doing that and watch it all day.

That’s what faith is, right?’ he says. ‘Believing in what can’t be known? Fall into my arms, Dori. I’ll catch you, every time, and I won’t let go.

No matter what grief or loss takes place, most of life flows on all around us, as though nothing's changed. At some point in our sorrow, we each make a choice to sink or swim. There's no alternative.