I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi,' Nagasawa once said to me. I had to agree with him.

A question wells up inside me, a question so big it blocks my throat and makes it hard to breathe. Somehow I swallow it back, finally choosing another. 'Are memories such an important thing?'It depends,' she replies, and closes her eyes. 'In some cases, they're the most important thing there is.

She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.

Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us.

There are symbolic dreams-dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities-realities that symbolize a dream.

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.