What happened, and what might have happened?

Everyone acts stupid at some time in order to be loved.

There was the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.

Life is never all one thing. It bounces around. Certainly, my own life has.

I was a coward. I went to the war.

...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated.

Together we understood what terror was: you're not human anymore. You're a shadow. You slip out of your own skin, like molting, shedding your own history and your own future, leaving behind everything you ever were or wanted to believed in. You know you're about to die. And it's not a movie and you aren't a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait.