But wishes were empty thoughts, cast down a dark hole. They didn't come true unless you worked for them. I'd learned that about the world, if nothing more.

Yet sometimes being a friend meant letting people do things that hurt, like putting distance between you, just because it made them happy.

Did he die well?"No, I thought. Nobody did. They just died.

Maybe I was just one of those people who couldn't rest easy unless things went catastrophically wrong.