Thank you for helping my sister,” he says.
I lean forward, mimicking his position. “I’m happy to.”
Calliope leans out her window. “STOP FLIRTING AND GET BACK TO WORK.

That’s the thing about depression. When I feel it deeply, I don’t want to let it go. It becomes a comfort. I want to cloak myself under its heavy weight and breathe it into my lungs. I want to nurture it, grow it, cultivate it. It’s mine. I want to check out with it, drift asleep wrapped in its arms and not wake up for a long, long time.

I want to kiss him for the rest of the night, for the rest of our lives. The one.

He glances down and notices that I'm still wearing a certain blue something, and, this time, it's HIS index finger that wraps underneath MY rubber band.
I shiver wonderfully. "I'm never taking it off."
Cricket brushes the delicate skin of my wrist. "It'll fall off."
"I'll ask you for another one."
"I'll give you another one." He smiles and touches his nose to mine.

We straighten , bu our snickering is barely contained as we attempt to focus our attention on a picture of a discarded Coke can. "This guy's lady love is kind of a slob, don't you think?" he whispers.
I cover my mouth with my hands again.
"A reaaaaaaaal litterbug."
"Stop it," I hiss. My eyes are watering. "Ohmygod look at this one! How did he get her toenail clippings?"
"If you were my girl," he whispers, "I'd take creepy pictures of your trash when I knew you weren't looking."
"If you were my girl," I whisper back," I"d put the creepy pictures in a foreign museum so you wouldn't know that I take creepy pictures.

I doubted myself, and that made me doubt you. But you weren’t the problem. You were never the problem. I should have trusted you, but I didn’t, because I couldn’t trust myself.