Gayle Forman

You dumb-ass," I crooned, kissing her on the forehead. "You don't share me. You own me.

We were all forged in the crucible.

Every fiction has its base in fact.

Mom was adamantly pro-choice. She had a bumper sticker on the car that read If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child? But in her case the choice was to keep me.

One in a million cases; such comforting odds, except when you were the one

I clap so that I can hold on to this feeling. I clap because I know what will happen when I stop. It__ the same thing that happens when I turn off a really good movie - one that I__e lost myself to - which is that I__l be thrown back to my own reality and something hollow will settle in my chest.

I clap because I know what will happen when I stop. It's the same thing that happens when I turn off a really good movie - one that I've lost myself to - which is that I'll be thrown back to my own reality and something hollow will settle in my chest. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie all over again just to recapture that feeling of being inside something real. Which, I know, doesn't make any sense.

Dying is easy. Living is hard

There are like twenty people in that waiting room right now. Some of them are related to you. Some of them are not. But we're all your family. She stops now. Leans over me so that wisps of her hair tickle my face. She kisses me on the forehead.You still have a family, she whispers.

My stomach lurched, an appetizer before the full portion of heartache I had a feeling was going to be served at some point soon.

Life is a big fat gigantic stinking mess, that's the beauty of it, too.

I do have a point to all this,_ she continues. __here are like twenty people in that waiting room right now. Some of them are related to you. Some of them are not. But we__e all your family._ She stops now. Leans over me so that the wisps of her hair tickle my face. She kisses me on the forehead. __ou still have a family,_ she whispers.

But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I__l be in love with tomorrow.

In the calculus of feelings, you never really know how one person's absence will affect you more than another's.

After that, I became kind of fascinated by her and by what I guessed was her ability to hear music in the silence. Back then, I'd wanted to be able to do that, too. So I took to watching her play, and though I told myself the reason for my attention was because she was as dedicated a musician as I was and that she was cute, the truth was that I also wanted to understand what she heard in the silence.

Concert' doesn__ mean standing up like a target in front of thousands of strangers. It means coming together. It means harmony.

Don't be scared...Women can handle the worst kind of pain. You'll find out one day.

I run my finger along the crease of the envelope, feel the weight of history inside. Wherever I'm going next, these are coming with me.