“There is warmth shooting through my broken body where there should be pain, and I put my arms around the back of his neck and I hold on to him. I hold on because you never know in this place when something good will be taken away.”

“I open my mouth to, I don't know, apologize again maybe. But he takes my face in his hands and presses his forehead to mine. And he's so close that I can feel his little warm breaths, and all I know is that when he draws his next breath, I want to get sucked in.Our lips touched, almost as soft as not touching at all. Then they press closer to each other, draw back uncertainly, touch again. There is warmth shooting through my broken body where there should be pain, and I put my arms around the back of his neck and I hold on to him. I hold on because you never know in this place when something good will be taken away.”

“The guitar's still around me. I slip it off and put it down. I want to feel him. To feel his breath on my neck. The warmth of his skin. To feel something other than sadness.Hold me, I tell him silently. Hold me here. To this place. This life. Make me want you. Want this. Want something. Please”

“I throw my arms around his neck and let him hold me. All seventeen years of me.”

“I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him back, trying to capture this moment, to clasp it, so I could always remember what it felt like to hold him this way.”

“I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, and all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way.”