“Blackthorn? Please. Shut. Up." I grab the collar of his jacket and pull him into me, answering every last protest with a kiss- a real one, deep and intentional.”

“I closed my eyes under the fluroescent lights and tried to make another birthday wish, a onetime do-over, a rebate, a trade-in on the kitchen sink kiss that started everything, offered up for just one last miracle.”

“If Frankie and I hadn't wanted ice cream that stupid day, he'd still be alive. If I hadn't gotten his heart all worked up kissing him every night since my birthday, he'd still be alive. If I'd never been born, he'd still be alive. If I could find the butterfly that flapped its wings before we got into the car that day, I would crush it. ”

“The hardest thing is that I’ll never know exactly what I lost, how much it should hurt, how long I should keep thinking about him. He took that mystery with him when he died, and a hundred thousand one-sided letters in my journal wouldn’t have brought me any closer to the truth than I was at the night I pressed my fingers to the sea glass he wore around his neck and kissed him back.”

“My eyes were closed and his mouth tasted like marzipan flowers and clove cigarettes, and in ten seconds the whole of my life was wrapped up in that one kiss, that one wish, that one secret that would forever divide my life into two parts. ”

“What's up?" Need a kidney? Two of them? Where do I sign? I grab my pen again, just in case.”

“Patrick leans in for a hug through the open doorway, and in his arms I'm reminded of the other dream I had last night, which... oh... which I immediately stamp out of my mind, hoping that no one else noticed the temperature in the room shoot up about five hundred degrees. Could my subconscious be any more inappropriate?”