“I looked in the mirror and stared at my reflection, until I was in the head-clearing trance that comes when you stare at something for a long time.”

“The truckers are staring," I said after a few seconds.It was true. They were. The whole row of them was doing a bad job of pretending not to look at us. "We just got engaged," Lucy shouted over to them. "I just asked this man to be my wife."The men at the counter traded confused looks. I burst out laughing. "We're glad you and your ass cracks could share this moment with us," she went on. "Seriously. We really are. Those are serious cracks and this is a serious moment.”

“I stopped wanting to float away from my life, because in the end my life was all I had. I'd walk the Fairmont campus and look up to the sky and I wouldn't see myself drifting off like some lost balloon. Instead I saw the size of the world and found comfort in its hugeness. I'd think back to those times when I felt like everything was closing in on me, those times when I thought I was stuck, and I realized that I was wrong. There is always hope. The world is vast and meant for wandering. There is always somewhere else to go.”

“He'd been looking for me? I forced myself to remain cool about this, to not pump my fist in the air. I wondered where I'd been. Probably swimming in my pool or driving around town or sprawled out on my bed and thinking about him. There was something beautiful about the idea of us reaching invisibly across town for each other.”

“I think some love you can stand to let go of because it's ultimately for the best, but other types you have to stick with until the day you die even when it's hard.You have to think about that before you run away from wherever you are. And then when you know, you either stay or you go and pray thatyou're making the right decision.”

“Was he coming to bury the hatchet? Was there a hatchet to even be buried? For some reason I started thinking of how weird it was that I would always be his son and he would always be my father, that there was nothing that could ever change. I didn't know whether this permanence was comforting or terrifying.”

“I was touched that he'd brought me here. I didn't know what to say. Up until then there was a part of me that wondered if maybe there was nothing more to him than an aura of danger and a disposable charm that he used to keep himself from getting into too much trouble. I was beginning to realize that like everyone else, he was searching for something, and like everyone else, he had no idea where he could find it.Thanks for bringing me here," I said. " It really means a lot me."Does it?" he asked. He seemed genuinely surprised by this. "I'm glad. I wasn't sure if you'd get it. I thought maybe you'd think it was creepy."No," I said quickly. "Not at all. I like that there's these different parts to you."Good," he said, smiling. "It's hard to show people everything, you know? You never know what they'll do with it once they have it.”