Jennifer E. Smith

“Now Hadley presses her forehead against the window of the taxi and once again finds herself smiling at the thought of him. He's like a song she can't get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn't think she could ever get tired of hearing it.”

“Hadley knows this isn’t some Disney movie. Her parents aren’t ever getting back together”

“Exactly. How can you know it makes you happy if you’ve never experienced it?”“There are different kinds of happy,” she said. “Some kinds don’t need any proof.”

“It was exactly as he’d thought it would be, like the first time and the millionth time all at once, like being wide awake, like losing his balance. Only this time, it wasn’t just him; this time, they were losing their balance together.”

“I never said I was good,” he told her, taking the pen. “Just that I liked doing it.”“That’s the best kind of good.”

“Childhood memories were like airplane luggage; no matter how far you were traveling or how long you needed them to last, you were only ever allowed two bags. And while those bags might hold a few hazy recollections—a diner with a jukebox at the table, being pushed on a swing set, the way it felt to be picked up and spun around—it didn’t seem enough to last a whole lifetime.”

“It seemed to Ellie that you could tell a lot about someone by the way they carried a secret—by how safe they kept it, how soon they told, the way they acted when they were trying to keep it from spilling out.”

“From: [email protected]: Saturday, June 8, 2013 1:18 PMTo: [email protected]: what happy looks likeSunrises over the harbor. Ice cream on a hot day. The sound of the waves down the street. The way my dog curls up next to me on the couch. Evening strolls. Great movies. Thunderstorms. A good cheeseburger. Fridays. Saturdays. Wednesdays, even. Sticking your toes in the water. Pajama pants. Flip-flops. Swimming. Poetry. The absence of smiley faces in an e-mail.What does it look like to you?”

“The idea that their paths might have easily not crossed leaves her breathless, like a near-miss accident on a highway, and she can't help marveling at the sheer randomness of it all. Like any survivor of chance, she feels a quick rush of thankfulness, part adrenaline and part hope.”

“Hadley presiono su cabeza contra la ventana del taxi y se descubre sonriendo al pensar en él. Es como una canción que uno no puede quitarse de la cabeza. Por mucho que lo intente, la melodía de su encuentro suena sin fin en su cerebro, cada vez más hermosa, como una nana, o un himno, y se le ocurre que nunca se cansará de escucharla.”

“No one is useless in this world, who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”

“I guess so,” she says, unable to keep the sigh out of her voice. “But not everyone keeps that promise.” She looks over toward the woman, still fastasleep. “Not everyone makes it fifty-two years, and if you do, it doesn’t matter that you once stood in front of all those people and said that youwould. The important part is that you had someone to stick by you all that time. Even when everything sucked.”

“The stories had become a part of her by then; they stuck to her bones like a good meal, bloomed inside of her like a garden. They were as deep and meaningful as any other trait Dad had passed along to her: her blue eyes, her straw-colored hair, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose.”

“Because the truth is that now that he’s here, she can’t imagine it any other way. Now that he’s here, she worries that crossing an entire ocean with someone between them might be something like torture.”

“After all, it's one thing to run away when someone's chasing you. It's entirely another to be running all alone.”

“Lo demás es solo geografía.”

“En ocasiones lo que más daño nos hace no son los cambios, sino la bofetada de la familiaridad.”

“Someone once told her there's a formula for how long it takes to get over someone, that it's half as long as the time you've been together.”

“Beside her, Oliver is craning his neck to read the signs for customs, already thinking about the next thing, already moving on. Because that's what you do in planes. You share an armrest with someone for a few hours. You exchange stories about your life, an amusing anecdote or two, maybe even a joke. You comment on the weather and remark about the terrible food. And then you say goodbye.”

“Because as far as she was concerned, there was no in-between: She wanted all or nothing, illogically, irrationally, even though something inside her knew that nothing would be too hard, and all was impossible.”

“That's the thing about flying: You could talk to someone for hours and never even know his name, share your deepest secrets and then never see them again.”

“She wishes that it were true, all of it. That it were more than just a story. That is was their story.”

“It didn’t help that she was right; when had that ever made anything better?”

“So that explains all the mind games.""You say mind games, I say research.”

“Alguien le dijo una vez que existe una fórmula para determinar cuánto se tarda en olvidar a alguien, y que es la mitad del tiempo que se ha estado con ese alguien.”

“- Me da miedo la mayonesa, así que con los años me he convertido en una experta.—¿Te da miedo la mayonesa?—Está entre mis tres o cuatro principales fobias.—¿Cuáles son las otras? —pregunta el chico con una sonrisa—. ¿Qué puede haberpeor que la mayonesa?—Los dentistas —empieza a enumerar Hadley—. Las arañas. Los hornos.—¿Los hornos? Supongo que no te gusta demasiado cocinar, entonces.—Y los espacios pequeños —continúa Hadley en voz más baja.”

“Eso es lo que tiene viajar en avión. Puedes pasarte horas hablando con unapersona y no llegar a conocer su nombre, compartir con ella tus secretos más íntimos y novolver a verla nunca más.”

“¿Sabías que dos personas que se encuentran por lo menos tres veces en menos de veinticuatro horas tienen un noventa y ocho por ciento más de probabilidades de volver a encontrarse?”

“Dos personas que se conocen en un aeropuerto tienen un setenta y dos por ciento más de probabilidades de enamorarse que dos que se conozcan en cualquier otro sitio”

“Perhaps if there were more time, or if time were more malleable; if she could be both places at once, live parallel lives”

“You're not the only one who copes by imagining things.”

“Beneath these was a small silver-edged photo album, and Emma breathed in at the sight of the engraved names: Tommy and Emma. She found herself smiling; she'd known somehow that he would have been a Tommy. And if he'd never had the chance to become any of the other things she'd imagined for him, she was happy that at least he'd had that.”

“When he looked over, Emma had her head tipped back against the tree, and was humming as she watched the clouds move through the branches. Peter realized then how alone they each were. It was just that now they were alone together.”

“It was probably stupid of him to have thought the trip would change anything. After all, leaving home behind didn't necessarily mean leaving behind the sort of person you were. And now here he was--the guy with all the maps, the one with the directions to anywhere and anything--still feeling completely and utterly lost.”

“Emma knew that she'd always been on the wrong side of the line that separated her from her parents, from Patrick and Annie and Nate, even from Peter. But how could she tell him that the reason she always acted so disinterested in everything was because of the worry that she herself wasn't all that interesting?”

“It wasn't long before he spotted another pay phone, a slanted structure near the river, and Annie and Emma waited patiently while he once again dialed and then hung up, but there was a strange comfort in the numbers, and words had never come easily to him anyways.”

“They were nearly to Annie's by now, and they made the rest of the trip in silence, Peter frowning out at the road with a look of deep concentration. Emma didn't blame him; after all, she'd insulted his entire system of beliefs. But how were you every supposed to get anywhere if you always stuck to the same route? He spent so much time charting out the world that he barely had a chance to get lost in it.”

“Around them the stubbled land was marked off by plaques and signs that explained to visitors what had happened here on a long-ago July day not unlike this one. But Peter already knew all they said and more. He looked around at the people with their noses tucked in brochures and guidebooks, and those trailing, sheeplike, after tour guides and park employees. He was used to feeling somewhat out of place most everywhere he went--at school or the barbershop, even at home, but here, where he knew everything, all the names and dates and facts, he somehow seemed to fit, and the knowledge of this welled up inside him. It was like he'd been born a blue flower in a field full of red ones and had only now been plunked down in a meadow so blue it might as well have been the ocean.”

“He wondered if there was a rule that you had to love all of someone, or whether you could pick out only the best parts, like piling your plate full of desserts at a buffet table and leaving the vegetables to go cold in their little metal bins.”

“Near his foot was a map of Gettysburg, and he looked down at the ridges and grooves running across the land. It wasn't just the nation that the war had divided; it was families as well. Everyone had been fighting for what they thought was right, no matter who was on the opposite side of the line, whether it was your father or your brother or your son. It was about issues and causes and ideas, and what more could you ask of a person, Peter thought, than to risk all that they were for all they believed they could be?”

“pg 29 their brief relationship now strikes her as the most obvious mistake in the worl”

“pg 13 the day ahead of her is like something living and breathing, something that is barreling towards her at an alarming rate and it seems only a matter of time before it will knock her flat on her back.”

“But though she’s told a longer version of the story a thousand times before to a thousand different people, she gets the feeling that Oliver might understand better than anyone else. It’s something about the way he’s looking at her, his eyes punching a neat little hole in her heart. She’s knows it’s not real: It’s the illusion of closeness, the false confidence of a hushed and darkened plane, but she doesn’t mind. For the moment, at least, it feels real.”

“There’s always a gap between the burn and the sting of it, the pain and the realization.”

“This house is about two dictionaries away from caving in,' she'd say, 'and you're buying duplicates?”

“Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers.”

“And being here like this, so suddenly close to him is enough to make her lightheaded. It's a feeling like falling.”

“The important part is that you had someone to stick by you all that time. Even when everything sucked.”

“it's like one of your maps. There's never just one way to get somewhere right? There are a bunch of different possibilities. Some of them take you where you want to go, some bring you home, and others go somewhere else entirely. You can be really certain about really uncertain things.”

“Yeah, but what if we got separated?Why would we?But just, what if?We won't”