Sarah Ockler

You ask me why I__ nice to you,_ he said. __hy, why, why. But you don__ ask me stuff that matters. Who I am or where I been. What I see when I look at you. What I want.

They say you can never step into the same river twice. And maybe that's how it was for Papi now, memories shifting and re-forming soundlessly beneath him while the rest of us sat on the shore and watched.

Frankie Perino and I were lucky that day. Lucky to be alive-that's what everyone said.

I'm still dropping dishes thinking in slow motion about the GPS woman in Mom's car. I imagine her beckoning me from outside the kitchen window illuminated like some robot-angel calling me forth to the Lexus where she will ferry me off to that planet of monotonous peace that special otherworldly place where all the residents are relaxed and confident and completely numb. Your life will. Get better in. Six. Point four. Million. Miles.

But I knew he wouldn't kiss me. Not tonight. Not like this. There was too much between us now, all the words and near misses. All the potential, the alternate futures that would stretch out before us in an unending spiral, all built on what happened in this moment. I held his fiery gaze and remembered the five-oh, the half-and-half, the promises I'd whispered to myself in the dawn light.I might lose all my memories one day, but that wouldn't keep me from making them.

I really don't even know you, and yet, in my life, you are forever entangled; to my history, inextricably bound.

I'm not sure if you even want me around or if you just feel sorry for me. I'm not sure of anything.

I can't stop thinking about what he felt like against my body, against my lips. I can't remember anything else, anything before that. And I realize in this moment that I've finally done it. That horrible, awful thing I swore I would never do.The frosting. The cigarettes. The blue glass triangle. The shooting stars. The taste of his mouth on mine in the hall closet. Gone. All I can think about is Sam. Matt is _ erased. My whole body is warm and buzzing. Sam is smiling next to me, because of me. And I've never felt so lonely in all my life.

It was just over a year ago. Twelve months, nine days and six hours ago, actually. But thirteen months ago everything was...perfect.

It takes a strong woman to lose everything, then stand naked in front of the mirror and face herself again. You need time, honey. And I don't mean time for it to go away. I mean time to learn how to live with it. This is a pain you'll always carry.

Family tragedies had a way of smashing everything apart and then gluing it all back together. The problem was no one ever knew how long the glue would hold.

I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.

See, some people politely encourage their tone-deaf friends to sing. Some people even convince them to go on live television and audition for national competitions. But me? I am not that friend.

Mom asked for a cupcake miracle? Well, here comes the freaking holy angel of icing, at your service. --

In your entire life, you can probably count your true friends on one hand. Maybe even on one finger. Those are the friends you need to cherish, and I wouldn't trade one of them for a hundred of the other kind. I'd rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people who aren't real. People who are just passing time.

Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up.

Nothing ever really goes away--it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.

Would 'sorry' have made any difference? Does it ever? It's just a word. One word against a thousand actions.