But It Was Okay Not

I Wasn't Sure What I Expected Her To Do Or Say To This. It Was All New To Me From That Second On. But Clearly, She'd Been There Before. It Was Obvious In The Easy Way She Shrugged Off Her Bag, Letting It Fall With A Thump Onto The Sand, Before Sitting Down Beside Me. She Didn't Pull Me Close For A Big Bonding Hug Or Offer Up Some Saccharine Words Of Comfort, Both Of Which Would Have Sent Me Running For Sure. Instead She Gave Me Nothing But Her Company, Realizing Even Before I Did This That This, In Fact, Was Just What I Needed.

My First Signing Was At My Hometown Independent Bookstore And Everyone In The World Came. It Was So Nice. My Family Was There, My Parents, Everybody I Worked With, All My Friends. So I Had This Great First Reading With A Like Hundred People There.

I Mean, It's Impossible To Fake Anything If You've Already Seen The Other Person In A Way They'd Never Choose For You To. You Can't Go Back From That.

All I'd Wanted For So Long Was For Someone To Explain Everything That Had Happened To Me In This Same Way. To Label It Neatly On A Page: This Leads To This Leads To This.

Because This Is What Happens When You Try To Run From The Past. It Just Doesn’t Catch Up, It Overtakes … Blotting Out The Future.