“He takes two steps back. Closer to the portal.I can't stop myself. "Ben," I call. And I'm not even embarrassed about how helpless my voice sounds.Don't go."I'll come back for you." He takes another step back. "I promise."Stay."Janelle Tenner," he says. "I will always fucking love you." And then he takes one more step back. Into the portal.And the blackness swallows him whole.”

“When the zipper snaps open, Ben pauses, his breath hot in my ear. "Janelle Tenner," he whispers. "I fucking love you.”

“Reaching out, I grab his hand and intertwine my fingers with his. And I move into his space until we're not even an inch from each other. Laying my forehead on his chest, I take a deep breath and feel his whole body relax, as if tension is rolling off his body in waves.I was always the kid who loved the smell of gasoline.His free hand comes up, and his fingers slip through my hair before his hand settles between my shoulder blades."Ben," I say into his shirt."Janelle," he whispers back, and I can feel his mouth against my hair. I can feel him smile.”

“So your perfect proposal, what would it be?" Ben asks. "Seriously?"... "I don't know. It would just be the two of us, and I guess I'd want him to say something honest, not overly romantic, not something that would make a great story to tell his friends. I'd just want him to lean over..." As I say it, I lean slightly toward Ben, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body radiating into the empty space between us, and drop the volume of my voice. "... and say 'Janelle Tenner, fucking marry me.”

“And the way it felt?" I whisper, as if that might soften the blow of embarrassment I'm about to deal. "Is that how you were feeling - how you feel - about me?" A breeze comes off the ocean, and my skin feels strangely empty and open as he gives an almost imperceptible nod.”

“I took a step back."Here." He plunked his wet hat on my head. "Don't go anywhere," he told me, then turned away.”

“Certain moments in my life are imprinted in me memory.They're easy to recall with perfect clarity, whether I want to remember them or not. Any small thing can trigger them: a phrase, a smell, a thought. It brings everything back like I'm reliving that moment, a brief scene in the movie of my life, complete with how horrible I felt at the time. And I usually felt horrible in those moments that I want to forget that stick around.”