“You know how you feel when you meet someone and they just give you the impression they're living on this entirely different planet from everyone else? That's sort of how I felt when I met you.”

“You know," she says. "You're still alive. I don't know how many different ways I can try to tell you before it finally sinks in.”

“I mean, you know how it is. You chase a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and life's never the same, no matter how many times you try to tell people it was just an accident.”

“Eddie, It's like you died that night," he whispers.So that's it. I died.I've been dead.I blink back the tears and pick at the mattress, but I don't say anything. I don't know what I could say to him. I don't know how to convince him I'm still here when I'm not sure of it myself anymore.”

“I want to go into the sympathy card business. . . Forget sappy messages about overcoming. I want ones that say NOW YOU’LL BE A LESSER PERSON THAN YOU WERE or WE CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND or I CAN UNDERSTAND BECAUSE SOMEONE I KNOW DIED TOO or maybe something about how grief can make your skin feel sore and bruised and electric because that’s how my skin has felt ever since, except for my hands.”

“I think there’s nothing left for me. I don’t think that for everyone else.”“So what do they have that you don’t at this point?”I press my lips together. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to talk about how everyone has something even if they don’t really have it anymore, that what they had makes them strong enough for this, to keep going.”

“You think I ever stopped wanting to die after the motel?" I ask. "You think a feeling like that just goes away?”