“Would Alona be gone before I even got a chance to say good-bye? A real good-bye? One last kiss and the chance to tell her that she’d made my life better even as she’d made me crazy? That we were better together than I would ever be by myself, but that because of her, I would be okay? Not great, but okay, and I owed that all to her? No. I needed to see her one last time.”