Did you just call me BEATRICE?

What?" I ask. "I'm developing a theory." "And it is?" She picks up her hamburger, grins, and says, "That you have a death wish.

It's stupid to miss a thing when there are so many people to miss instead, but I miss this train already, and all the others that carried me through the city, my city, after I was brave enough to ride them. I brush my fingers over the car wall, just once, and then jump.

Caleb runs up to me and folds me carefully in his arms. I breathe a sigh of relief. I thought I had gotten to the point where I didn’t need my brother anymore, but I don’t think such a point actually exists.

Sometimes I still forget to look for the gentler parts of her. For so long all I saw was the strength, standing out like the wiry muscles in her arms or the black ink marking her collarbone with flight.

Oh, are we at the insult part of the breakup?" she says. "Because I got in a lot of practice after what happened with Will. I have several choice things to say about her nose.

This concept could easily have gone awry. Stories about love tend to go that way sometimes. They wander into the realm of cheese and never return, which I think is a shame, because there is a way to write about romantic love without breaking out the Velveeta.