“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.”

“The world is vast and meant for wandering. There is always somewhere else to go.”

“For some reason I didn't believe it. I don't know why. Maybe it was because my father was the kind of person who told himself things over and over until he believed them, who could justify almost anything. What I wanted was for it to really be okay. I wanted him to really not care, to maybe even be happy about it. Instead he was acting like I was making a bad career choice, like I was passing up an English degree at Fairmont in favor of a bartending certificate at the local community college.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”