“I knew if I sat there another minute, I'd never be able to get beyond everything that was going to happen from that day on. My life would disappear inside his. So I got up.”

“I realise now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go so far away that I'd never be able to make my way home again. But I have no idea why.”

“I knew I would wish for that moment back every day of my life, so I lived it with everything I had.”

“My friends and family had put the bedroom back together and I woke the next morning thinking, for one brief second, that it was just another beautiful early-spring day. As I sat up, though, my body began to weep even before my mind recognized the cause for grieving. The world would never be the same. Everything I would make from that day on would recall how it had changed. Everything I did for myself would be in the name of what we had been.”

“Yeah, I knew," he finally said, his voice soft. "I always knew I'd do whatever it took. Living in a trailer park, running in a pack of barefoot kids . . . my whole life was already set out for me, and I sure as hell didn't like the looks of it. So I always knew I'd take my chance when I got it. And if it didn't come, I'd make something happen.”

“As it turned out, Welcome was where I lost everything, and gained everything. Welcome was the place where my life was guided from one track to another, ending me to places I'd never thought of going.”