Erin and I spent four hours shopping for dresses and shoes Tuesday night. She was going all out in her intention to make Chaz regret any decision he'd made that didn't include worshipping at her feet.

Chivalry isn't really dead you know." "Oh?" "Nah. That guy's just an asshole.

But the scars are always there, waiting for something to poke them.

I opened my mouth wide one time to see if the words I was thinking would fall out, but they wouldn’t. If words don’t want to come out, they don’t. I don’t understand when people say things and then they say, I didn’t mean to say that. Words don’t just fall out. You have to push them out. And sometimes, you can’t push them out, even if you want to.

The exception is I'm not going away. Don't ask me to do that ever again.

I noticed you the first week. Not just because of how pretty you are, though of course, that played into it. It was the way you lean onto your elbows when you 're listening in class, when something catches your interest. And when you laugh, it's never to get attention, it's just-laughter. The way you obssevively tuck your hair behind your ear on the left side, but let the right side fall down like a screen. And when you 're bored, you tap your foot soundlessly and move your fingers on the desktop like you 're playing an instrument. I wanted to sketch you.

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.