“Ready to meet my best friend, then?"I clipped my vest together in front and smiled tightly. "Should I bring a bottle of wine? Any taboo topics? Politics, life after death?""Yeah, just stay away from that one entirely.”

“I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it - but take care not to smile at any part of it.”

“Everything was as it always should have been. I was in the arms of my best friend, the man I loved and the man I would spend the rest of my life with. It just didn’t get any better than that.”

“My first incident drinking alcohol occurred after a 2-month period in which I stole wine coolers and beers from my parents and hid them in different places around my room. I was 14 years old, in eighth grade. I invited a friend over one night after I had stolen enough. After 2 wine coolers the friend interrupted me, saying, "Hold on," and vomited into a trash can. I vomited a lot into the toilet. The next day, like a dumbass, I put the empty wine cooler and beer bottles in our outside garbage bin without trying to cover them. My dad caught me as a result, but hid it from my mom for unknown reasons.”

“He’s my bodyguard,” I said tightly. “You know that. I don’t trust you. I should walk away from this, but I’m here, and I’m going to take a look. He stays. Got a problem, take it up with my mom.”

“I picked at one of the buttons on my vest until the thread unraveled and it fell into my palm. Memo to self- buy a sewing kit to stitch my life back together.”