“Stop saying no offense,” I said, “when you say offensive things. It’s not a free pass.”

“She’s so, everybody’s so stupid, you know? Christian too, Todd, whoever says stupid things, you’re from different worlds, like you dropped here in a spaceship.”I had to say something. “Yeah,” I said. “So—?”“So they can fuck themselves,” you said. “I don’t care, you know?”I felt a smile on my face, tears too.“Because Min, I know, OK? I’m stupid I know, about faggy movies, sorry, fuck, I’m stupid about that too. No offense. Ha! But I want to do it, Min.Any party you want, anything, not go to bonfires. Whatever you want to do, for the eighty-ninth birthday, even though I can’t remember the name.”“Lottie Carson.” I stepped close to you, but you held your hands out, you weren’t done.“And they’ll say things, right? I know they will, of course they will. Your friends are, probably, too, right?”“Yes,” I said. I felt furious, or furiously something, pacing with you and waiting to fall into your moving arms.“Yes,” you said, with a huge grin. “Let’s stay together, I want to be with you. Let’s. Yes?”“Yes.”“Because I don’t care, virginity, different, arty, weird parties with bad cake, that igloo. Just together, Min.”“Yes.”“Like everyone is telling us not to be.”“Yes!”“Because Min, listen, I love you.”I gaped.“Don’t, you don’t have to—I know it’s crazy, Joan says I’ve really lost it, but—”“I love you too,” I said.”

“Someone can break your heart, leave you dead on the lawn, and still you never learn what to say to stop it all over again.”

“To stutter through it with you or even stop stuttering and say nothing, was so lucky and soft, better talk than mile-a-minute with anyone. After a few minutes we’d stop rattling, we’d adjust, we’d settle in, and the conversation would speed into the night.”

“Twenty-six,” you said. “One for each day we’ve been together, Min.”Somebody oohed. Somebody shushed them.“And I hope that someday I’ll do another something stupid and I’ll have to say it a million times because that’s how long it’ll be, together with you, Min. With you.”

“because damn it Ed, that’s not why we broke up. I love it, I miss it, I hate to give it back to you, this complicated thing, it’s why we stayed together.”

“...there's not enough ink and paper to say all I wanted.”