"I was still trying to impress you, and still wanted to be impressed by you, so i could pass along pieces of your impressiveness in stories to my friend, convincing myself this was possible."

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I must remind myself that you look at others because they're interesting, not because you're interested, and that I do it too."

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Like the evershifting sky, your body yields surprises to me, tiny markers I have never noticed, designs within designs."

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I'd never had to teach someone how to travel before. Drugging you up for the airplane, dragging you hither and thither through Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco. Your parents never took you on trips as a kid, not when they were together and not when they were apart, and I think this left your sense of exploration stunted. At least, that's my theory. Eventually I won you over to the geography of wandering. Although I will admit that for you the best part is still napping in the middle of the day."

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We all have that touch point, the place we reach for without knowing it. For you, it's my wrist. For me, your shoulder."

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Every time I call you mine, I feel like I'm forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I'm reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power."

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I still don't know if this is a good quality or a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it. Not just during sex, or while talking, or kissing. I don't deliberately pull away - I don't think I do - But i find myself suddenly there on the outside, unable to lose myself in where I am. You catch me sometimes. You'll say I'm drifting off, and I'll apologize, trying to snap back to the present. But I should say this: Even when I detach, I care. You can be separated from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you."

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It was the way you said, "I have something to tell you." I could feel the magic drain from the room."

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Nights when I need to sleep and you can't. Days when I want to talk to you and you won't. Hours when every noise you make interferes with my silence. Weeks when there is a buzzing in the air, and we both pretend we don't hear it."

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I imagine you saved my life. And then I wonder if I'm just imagining it."

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That's the dilemma, isn't it? When you're single, and there's the sadness and joy of only me. And when you're paired, there's the sadness and joy of only you."

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I try not to think about us growing old together, mostly because I try not to think about growing old at all. Both things - The years passing, the years together - are too enormous to contemplate. But one morning, I gave in. You were asleep, and I imagined you older and older. You hair graying, your skin folded and creased, your breath catching. And I found myself thinking: If this continues, if this goes on, then when i die, your memories by me will be my greatest accomplishment. Your memories will be my most lasting impression."

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I want to take back at least half of the "I love you"s, because I didn't mean them as much as the other ones. I want to take back the book of artsy photos I gave you, because you didn't get it and said it was hipster trash. I want to talk back what I said about you being an emotional zombie. I want to take back the time I called "honey" in front of your sister and you looked like I had just shown her pictures of us having sex. I want to take back the wineglass I broke when I was mad, because it was a nice wineglass and the argument would have ended anyway. I want to take back the trust I had while you were away in Austin. I want to take back the time I said you were a genius, because I was being sarcastic and I should have just said you'd hurt my feelings. I want to take back the secrets I told you so I can decide now whether to tell them to you again. I want to take back the piece of me that lies in you, to see if I truly miss it. I want to take back at least half the "I love you"s, because it feels safer that way."

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I don't want to be the strong one, but I don't want to be the weak one, either. why does it feel like it's always one or the other? When we embrace, one of the us is always holding the other a little tighter."

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It surprised me - surprises me still - that you were the first one to say it. I was innocent, in a way, expecting those three words to appear boldface with music. But instead, it was such an ordinary moment: The movie was over, and I stood up to turn off the TV. A few minutes had passed form the end of the final credits, and we'd been sitting there on the couch, your legs over mine, the side of your hand touching the side of my hand. The video stopped and the screen turned blue. "I'll get it," I said, and was halfway to the television when you said, "I love you."

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"The part I enjoy most is not the doing, but the noticing. Noticing the way she smells like oversugared coffee, and the difference between her smile and her photographed smile, and the way she bites her lower lip, and the pale skin of her back. I just want the pleasure of noticing these things at a safe distance - I don't want to have acknowledge that I am noticing. I don't want to talk about it or do stuff about it."

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"And then there are nights like tonight, when the truth is what comes out, because it's what we need the most. Or maybe just one of us needs it the most, but the other knows the right time to give it. Like now, when what I want most in the universe is to have him beside me."

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"When things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It's because a little piece gets lost - the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed."

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"You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot."

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"I will admit there's a certain degree of giving a fuck that goes into not giving a fuck. By saying you don't care if the world falls apart, in some small way you're saying you want it to stay together, on your own terms."

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"Maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall or how and when you're gonna land, and I gotta tell you friends that to stop thinking about the landing because it's all about the falling.

... Maybe there is something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt because it matters.. But I just fell and landed and I am still standing here to tell you that you've gotta learn to love that falling, because it's all about falling... Just fall for once. Let yourself fall!"

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"I am awful.

I am heartless.

I am scared that these things are actually true."

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"Caring doesn't sometimes lead to misery. It always does."

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"And maybe that's the problem: Maybe each new breakup feels so radically new to Tiny that, in some way, it hasn't happened before."

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"I think about how much depends upon a best friend. When you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don't scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it's not."

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"When you date someone, you have the markers along the way, right: You kiss, you have The Talk, you say the Three Little Words, you sit on a swing set and break up. You can plot the points on a graph. And you check up with each other along the way: Can I do this? If I say this, will you say it back?"

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"But with friendship, there's nothing like that. Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are."

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"That's the problem: so many things are true. It's true that I want to smother her with compliments and true that I want to keep my distance. True that I want her to like me and true that I don't. The stupid, endless truth speaking out of both sides of it's big, stupid mouth. It's what keeps me, stupidly, talking."

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"I do not say 'good-bye.' I believe that's one of the bullshittiest words ever invented. It's like you're given the choice to say 'bad-bye' or 'awful-bye' or 'couldn't-care-less-about-you-bye.' Every time you leave, it's supposed to be a good one. Well I don't believe in that. I believe against that."

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