“I tucked the Camel coupon from his cigarette pack into my pocket. A souvenir of the moment where he said maybe. I would hold on to his maybe for as long as it would take, even forever.”

“We kissed each other until we were too tired to keep going. I could still feel him holding back. It was my penance for what I had done to him. All I could do was hope the walls would fall and that I could have all of him again, but I was always leaving and he was tired of watching me walk away. We both knew that I couldn’t stay and that he couldn’t come with me, but still, we couldn’t let go.”

“Even though I always came back, he said he was always watching me leave.”

“I threw his framed picture off my balcony just to hear my heart break.”

“I was girly and friendly and my family life was happy but many days I felt like I was on the inside what Chase was on the outside. I always believed I was a happy person with a sad soul. I felt like I had had tragedy in my life when I hadn’t. Somehow, without having experienced what he had, his scars resonated with me.”

“I decided I would fill the emptiness in me with God and with paint.”

“I thought about how the past can become so small. An entire day, 24 separate, heavy hours, becomes the size of a tiny brown leaf falling from a tree. Before you know it, a whole year is just a pile of dead leaves on the ground. The year or so I’d spent in love with Chad was starting to feel so long ago, swept away by the wind. I knew that this year would soon feel far away too.”