“He put his hand on his forehead and scoured the French department of his memory for a word. He knew it was in there. He'd put it in almost fifty years before and hadn't had cause to remove it. But for the life of him he couldn't find it.”

“He knew that when he'd let Cheyenne lead him away, he'd lost his chance to find out the name of the girl who, without a single word spoken to him, had stolen his heart.”

“He tried to calm his thoughts, but everything came back to what he'd almost done. Because he hadn't done anything, for years or ever, he had almost done this. Because he had no stories of valor, he had almost done this. Because the efforts he'd made towards creating something like a legacy had failed, he had almost done this.”

“He nearly always put his hand on his friend's arm and looked for a second into his face before leaving him.”

“He clutched the watch hard in his fist, determined to destroy it, to prove that it couldn't be real. That she hadn't come here because of him, for him.That he hadn't done what he knew he had.”

“I put my forehead on his collarbone, place one hand on his chest. Its rhythm reassures me: He is real, and he is now.”