Anna: Ash, I don't have anything planned with my Mother... She's dead.Ashley: What?Anna: She died when I was seven. She drowned. It's just my Dad and me. I didn't tell you before because I just wanted a fresh start here, because before I moved, everybody knew about it and... I'm sorry.Ashley: ....... You're like a Disney Princess!

I'd give anything right now to go back, even just for a few moments, so I could pay more attention. Inscribe every detail of him, and of us together, onto my heart, where I could keep it safe always. Where even time couldn't erase it.

Each heartbeat begins with a single, electrical impulse, or "spark." The distinctive sound we hear through a stethoscope, or when we place our head on a loved one's chest, is the sound of the heart valves opening and closing in perfect synchronicity with each other. It is a two-party rhythm - a delicate dance of systole and diastole, which propels the heart's electrically charged particles through its chambers roughly every second of the day, every day of our lives.

When he saw Tyler, his face went serious, which struck me as comical. Andy had always been protective, but when it came to me having anything to do with guys, he felt it was his duty to inform and protect me from the ones he thought were most like himself. When I turned thirteen, he pulled me aside and we had his version of 'the talk,' which mostly consisted of a bunch of 'uhs' and 'ums,' but I got the gist of his speech: boys only wanted one thing, and I shouldn't give it to them until I was at least thirty-three. And married.

You know... sometimes we meet our destiny on the road we take to avoid it.

[I]t wasn't history that was too fragile, but me.

Every town has its stories. Stories that have been told so many times by so many different people they've worked themselves into the collective consciousness as truth.

I sink into it completely, letting everything else fall away so all that's left is this. A moment like a poem.

Life is made of moments. and choices. Not all of them matter, or have any lasting impact. Skipping class in favor of a taste of freedom, picking a prom dress because of the way it transforms you into a princess in the mirror. Even the nights you steal away from an open window, tiptoe silent to the end of the driveway, where darkened headlights and the pull of something unknown beckon. These are all small choices, really. Insignificant as soon as they’re made. Innocent.But then.Then there’s a different kind of moment. One when things are irrevocably changed by a choice we make. A moment we will play endlessly in our minds on lonely nights and empty days. One we’ll search repeatedly for some indication that what we chose was right, some small sign that tells us the truth isn’t nearly as awful as it feels. Or as awful as anyone would think if they knew.So we explain it to ourselves, justify it enough to sleep. And then we bury it deep, so deep we can almost pretend it never happened. But as much as we wish it were different, the truth is, our worlds are sometimes balanced on choices we make and the secrets we keep.

I read once that water is a symbol for emotions. And for a while now I've thought maybe my mother drowned in both.

I knew that meant we were done and that we'd smooth over the surface I'd just tossed a rock into, but even the waves that crash down on the beach start out as tiny ripples, far out at sea.They just gain strength over time.

I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance. All sounds of the world carrying on like it always had. So much could change or be lost, and still, the rest of the world went on like it was nothing. It didn't seem wrong, but it didn't seem right either. I'd gone on today like it was nothing. I'd laughed and felt happy and forgotten for a little while that this was now a world without my brother in it.

Quinn, I..." He whispers the words, unfinished, into my mouth as the space between us disappears and our lips finally touch. A thousand fireworks explode inside me, and I feel them in him too, in his lips on mine, and his hands in my hairm and the way we pull each other closer

He always told me to look strong, even if I didn't feel it, because sometimes, that's all you can do.

I was laughing and he was too, and there we were, tangled up together in the water and sunshine. In a good kind of way.